


because without her, I am only revolutions of ruin

by queenhawke



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-09
Updated: 2014-12-09
Packaged: 2018-02-12 11:52:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 42,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2108901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenhawke/pseuds/queenhawke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It starts out innocently enough. Well, not entirely innocent - they did kill a man, after all. But in the grand scheme of things, it’s like swatting a fly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. now I've got a mind full of wicked designs

**Author's Note:**

> OK SO. This is a rewrite of the fic I started like almost a year ago. Time of the Doctor kinda screwed up a bunch of things I'd written/planned and I know it's already an AU so I could've just ignored it BUT IT WAS BUGGING ME. So I'm rewriting it. I kinda wanted to wait until I'd finished it before posting but DW starts in like two weeks and I wanted to at least start posting chapters before that. Because. Because.  
> I've got like eight chapters written and there will be about 2-3 more so there shouldn't be a massive wait between chapters. The first chapter is pretty much the exact same, but after that the rewrites start so yeahhh ENJOY
> 
> Title is from Only Revolutions by Mark Z. Danielewski, chapter title is from Hey Pretty by Poe. Which is based on House of Leaves by Mark Z Danielewski. This is going to be a recurring thing for me sorry I JUST LOVE DANIELEWSKI A LOT

 

It starts out innocently enough. Well, not entirely innocent - they did _kill_ a man, after all. But in the grand scheme of things, it’s like swatting a fly. Thinking back on it now, he finds he can’t even remember the man’s face. Maybe that’s the worst bit.

-

Picture this: the Doctor, alone. Ponds sound asleep on the TARDIS, won’t be ready for another adventure for about eight hours. Rubbish human physiology. Granted, they’d just battled an angry siren/alien nurse, and Rory nearly died again, but still. _He_ nearly died all the time too. Actually died quite a few times, or had his cells completely rearranged at least, and you didn’t see _him_ snoring for hours.  
The Doctor, bored. No thermo-couplings to fix, could go out for an adventure alone, but it’s always better to share. Everything’s better when shared, really. Except secrets, and names.

River is the obvious answer, her being the question he so fiercely wants to solve. An enigma wrapped in a mystery wrapped in a secret wrapped in a rather appealing human form. _Human,_ he reminds himself. _Human human human._ Not to fall in love with. Short lives, deep wounds, and he’s already seen the knife that cuts him. He doesn’t like it one bit. Too many jagged edges, curving around his hearts.

Stormcage coordinates being punched in, levers being pushed, brakes, for once, left off. He doesn’t want to alert the guards, is what he tells himself, knowing fully it’s not about the guards at all. It’s about her. As always. He adds that to the pile of reasons why he hates himself. No self-control. Weak hearts.

She’s already at the doors of her cell, eyes sparkling with mischief, weakening his knees with the merest tilt of her head. And then that low, melodious voice, winding itself around his mind and digging its heels in his synapses.

“Hello, sweetie.”

He mutters a greeting, opens the doors (like she needs him for that, but something tells him she rather likes him doing the work for her), and she brushes past him into the TARDIS. His breath catches slightly. Weak hearts, weak mind.

-

One hour later, and they’re on a lush human colony at a party of some high born youngster, whose name has already slipped his mind. They’re not here for the youngster anyway, they’re here for the dancing. Or River is here for the dancing, and he’s here for the fumbling with his words and limbs every time his body comes in contact with hers. She stirs a desire in him that frightens him a bit, a feeling he’s not felt since the Time War. He tends not to be attracted to humans like this. They’re fascinating, of course, easy to fall in love with. Physically, they’re compatible, nearly the same. Mentally, they’re rather... uninspiring. Not even slightly telepathic, unless you give them a bit of a boost. Not really exciting, that. Humans are dull in that aspect.

Except River, of course. He can feel it. Sometimes, when they kiss, there’s a flutter against his mind. Like she’s trying to connect, but doesn’t quite dare to. Humans should not be capable of that, but she is. Somehow. Another mystery.

“Fancy stealing something?”

She catches him off guard, as always. He doesn’t mind, it’s quite refreshing. _Does_ rather mind what she’s proposing.

“We’re at a _party_ , River! We’re not going to steal something at a party, that’d be rude. And morally wrong, of course.” He adds the latter hastily, not missing the smirk tugging at River’s red, red lips.

“The host is filthy rich, he won’t miss it.”

“Depends on what you’re planning on stealing.”

“The massive diamond he’s got in his upstairs safe. You know the one, he was bragging about it earlier.” They’re still dancing, River’s hair swirling around rather hypnotically. Though not quite as hypnotic as her smile.

“He’ll definitely miss that then. And what would we even do with a massive diamond?”

“Oh, I don’t know, brighten up my cell a bit? It’s not about the diamond, anyway, you know that. The fun is in the stealing,” she purrs. His defences are waning with every syllable. “I’ll probably sell it later. It’s hardly the type of diamond to put on a ring. Massive, like I said.”

He grumbles a bit, waving his hands around (terrible dance moves) in a pathetic attempt at outrage. She just smirks. Bad, bad girl.

Terrible, weak Doctor.

-

They’re midway through stealing the massive diamond (and it is rather massive), when the alarms start blaring. He curses, she merely laughs.  
“Finally! I was afraid someone had disabled them.”

He swivels around at that, laser cutter he was using on the glass encasing falling on the ground with a metallic ‘clunk’. She’s giggling. _Giggling_.

“You _knew_ about the alarms? And you _didn’t_ disable them?” he sputters.

“Of course not, that’d be too easy. No fun if no one notices us.” She laughs again, leaning against the doorway of the safe (massive safe for a massive diamond), all curves and hair and smirks, and his thoughts are not with guards but with how no one should look this outrageously attractive while attempting robbery. There’s shouting in the hallway. She quirks an eyebrow.

“Well, get on with it. We have a time limit now.”

-

He’s not sure how it happens. One minute he’s extracting a diamond from its overly complicated encasing, the next there’s gunfire and yelling and smoke. There’s a struggle, someone grabs him forcefully by the arm but he strategically plants a knee in a body part. More shouting, River this time, and now there’s smooth metal sliding over his palm, his fingers automatically gripping the gun. He uses it to knock one of the guards in the head, there’s

_a sickening crunch as a rock hits an unconscious caveman, head splitting open, there’s blood, it had to be done, it had to be done, except no no no that never happened, he was stopped, the man is alive, there’s no blood on his hands it’s only his imagination_

a cry of pain and the man slides down the wall. He turns, and sees River, trapped. Another guard, gun pointed at her, and the sight fills him with dread and rage. His finger finds the trigger; his hand, trembling slightly, finds a target. In the split second between pulling the trigger and the bullet leaving the chamber, he sees River lift her own gun.

Of course she has her own gun.

- 

They don’t know whose bullet killed him. Could have been both.  
She’s sitting at the base of the stairs, turning the diamond in her hand. He’s pacing around, running his hand through his hair, muttering. She looks up at him, burning gaze locking him in place. “Don’t go blaming yourself.”

“I _shot_ him.”

“So did I. And it was my idea to steal the diamond in the first place.”

“I shouldn’t have fired.”

“You were trying to save me. It’s alright.”

“I don’t even know – I just got so angry, I don’t know why...”

“Instinct. Reflex. Look, you can dwell on this forever, but it won’t bring him back. It happened.” Her voice is distant, cold. She stands up. “I need to go.”

He gapes at her. “No, no you can’t go _now_ . You can’t. I need – you can’t _go_.”

“Amy and Rory will be up soon. Try not to brood too much.” She tosses the diamond to him, punches in coordinates on her vortex manipulator. Pushes a button. Zips out of existence.

He stares at the place she just stood a second ago. Looks down at the diamond in his hands. There’s a speck of blood on it.

He throws the diamond in a supernova.

-

He’s not sure what to do with himself for a while. He puts on a brave face for the Ponds, smiling and ushering them on adventures. Distracts himself with the mystery of Amy’s non-pregnancy. Tells himself there will be no more nightly escapades with River.

That lasts about a week.

The River he picks up is younger, doesn’t know anything about

_a horrific gurgling sound coming from the guard as blood starts to fill his lungs, he’s fallen on his knees, clutching at his chest, he’s so young, eyes wide in terror, he’s trying to say something, plead, beg for help but there is no air for him to make words, a bubble of blood forms in the corner of his mouth and pops and the Doctor almost wants to laugh_

any dead guards. Her lips are painted red and he can’t stand the sight of it so he crashes his mouth into hers as if he could kiss the red right off her. His hands are shaking. He fists them in her hair and his mind has either gone completely blank or is so filled with chaos that it’s become one solid black mass, he’s not sure. They’re both breathing heavily when they break apart.

“What was that?”

He doesn’t know. Settles on a half-truth.

“I missed you.”

She laughs, shakes her head, mesmerising him with her whirling curls.  
“Sentimental idiot.”

-

No one dies that night, though there is a lot of shooting and threatening humanoid aliens. Slave traders. River shoots one in the foot when he tries to escape. Shoots him in the hand when he tries to pry the ropes around his wrists off. The man calls her a madwoman, and she laughs, and then the Doctor laughs because he’s been tense all night and it needs to come out somehow. He thinks about Octavian’s warning and that just makes him laugh more, thinking about how that man died for him and how he is so happily running into River’s arms, putting his trust in this woman, this murderess. Octavian didn’t have a clue; he didn’t know what she was at all. Not that the Doctor _does_ , of course, but he’s starting to think that he doesn’t really care anyway. She could have killed a billion people and he’d still pick her up at night to go on adventures. How could he stay away from her, ever? The thought startles him. He hadn’t even noticed that he’d stopped running. At which point had he turned around and thrown himself at her feet?

The slave trader is crying now, and River just rolls her eyes and smirks and taunts. She throws the Doctor a look that says ‘see what I can do?’ and it’s at that moment he becomes completely sure she will kill him, has killed him, is serving time for killing him. He thinks he wouldn’t want to be killed by anyone else. Thinks that perhaps that is the only way he can give himself completely to her. He can fall in love with a human and not worry about outliving her because she will end his life before her own ends.

It's his last body anyway. Let his last be hers, only hers.

They make love that night, if you can call it that. It’s his first time, yet she is anything but gentle with him. Tears his clothes from his body, pushes him onto the bed, hard. She’s all curves and hair and teeth and a mad glimmer in her eye that sets his whole body on fire. Afterwards he has bruises and marks from where the handcuffs bit into his wrists and he thinks he has never felt better or more alive.

There’s a soft gurgling at the back of his mind and the image of a bubble of blood bursting.

 

 


	2. you're the bomb squad after the bomb's gone off

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> During the day, during his adventures with the Ponds, he often finds his mind wandering to her. He loves his friends, he does, but they’re human and even though they’re her parents they are not River.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Only Revolutions by Mark Z. Danielewski.

Time passes, as it has a habit of doing, and mysteries get solved, like they're supposed to. Too late for Amy, though. He vaguely wonders if he would have been able to save her earlier if he hadn't been distracted by his nightly escapades with River. Wonders if he could have spared her the trauma of giving birth all alone, on an asteroid without her loving husband to hold her hand. But what's done is done, right? He can't turn back time.

He could.

Theoretically.

He could go back in time and warn his younger self. He could go back to Amy and Rory's wedding night and hand them some condoms. He could do all those things, and no one could hold him back.

He shakes his head. What's wrong with him? He can't do that, the consequences could be horrible. _Remember Mars. Remember Adelaide._

He's still in the middle of those thoughts when Rory returns. He'd sent him out to get River, figured she would be their best asset. River's skilled in combat, and had shown to be quite protective of Amy, who better to accompany them on their rescue mission? Except Rory comes back alone. Tells the Doctor that River refused, that she said she could not come with them. That this was the day he would find out who she is.

What the hell does that even mean.

Why the hell would she abandon him like this?

He tries to hide his crushing disappointment from Rory, shrugging and blabbering about all the other people they could recruit. He tries to tell himself that he's disappointed because River would be of great value to the mission, not because it feels like a personal affront. It's not about him. It's about Amy, about saving her. He can't be thinking about River right now, not while his best friend is in danger.

(And yet he can't help but think about River, can't help but feel a twinge of excitement because if what she says if true, if he finds out who she is today... Is this what she meant when she said everything will change?)

- 

The assault on Demon's Run goes from good to bad to catastrophic in the span of minutes. He silently curses Kovarian and her henchmen. That woman with her smug face and her – her _smug face_. How could he let someone like that fool him? When Amy backs away from him, he can't even blame her. He messed up. Big time. And innocent people paid the price, as always.

“Well then soldier, how goes the day?”

The strange rage/joy mash of emotions he feels at seeing River turns quickly into confusion and shame as she gives him the verbal smackdown he very much deserves. Of all the people to tell him this, why her, though? Isn't she just as bad as him? Not too long ago he watched her torture slavers and now she's giving him a lecture on how bad it is that he's instilling fear into people. But on the other hand it makes sense, because _of course_ she can see the damage he does. Where other people see a good man, she just sees a man. Just him. And then he sees her name and then he sees _her_ , and he realises she’s not doing this for him, not really. Because he already knows, he's always known what he does, he just chose to ignore it because running away from your problems is so much easier than facing them (and that's how he knew River Song was never a problem, because he tried running away from her and it was impossible). And she knows he knows. She's not telling him what he's doing wrong, she's telling him what he's doing wrong _in front of everyone._ In front of Amy and Rory, who love him, and Vastra and Jenny, who look up to him, and the corpse of a girl he doesn't even know but who gave her life for him anyway. She’s doing it for her parents and the universe and the good man he should be. He knows she’s right, he knows it’s his fault Amy and Rory lost their child, knows it’s his fault River never had a normal life. Knows the slippery slope he’s been going down on is only going to lead to more disaster. He knows it's the people in his life, the humans, who will keep him grounded. His friends will always be the best of him, but while he needs their love and adoration, they also need to see his bad sides. They can't keep him a good man if they think he already is one.

The other side of the revelation is one of pure joy. River is like him, she’s not human, she will not wither away in mere decades. She will _die_ , of course, he knows that, he’s seen it. But they can have all the time in the world before that. And besides, she’s still going to kill him. He won’t have to live without her.

He hadn’t actually realised how scared he was of living without her.

-

Berlin happens, and she kills him. But it’s not River, just some brainwashed child wearing her face and he will not be killed by a puppet. So he appeals to her love for her parents (not her love for him, she does not love him yet and he cannot make her) and shows her a glimpse of a possible future, like she once did in the Library. He’s glad she isn’t as much of a coward as he is. She takes the bait and there is a light and a rebirth for both of them. And he leaves her behind. And runs.

He stares at the data he collected from the Tesselecta, confirming what he already knew. There’s a twinge of fear now. Not fear of death, never fear of death. Fear that he doesn’t have enough time left.

-

The few times he sees her at the university, she is either volatile and angry or exuberant and horny. She doesn’t know who she is. He’s afraid he’ll shape her too much. He doesn’t have her patience, he’s no good at keeping spoilers. He’s also terrible at staying away from her, from her bright eyes and boucning curls and devious grin. She's River but she's Mels but she's _River_ , River enough that he's incapable of resisting.

Once, she asks him to help her hunt down the Silence. She wants them dead. He agrees. Drops the Ponds off at a resort and attempts to track down the order. Two weeks later, and they are no closer to finding Kovarian or any of the Silence. Five people die. Four by River’s hands, one by his. Worthless peons, no one will miss them. So he tells himself. When he kills the last one, she takes one look at his face and tells him they’re done, she wants to go back.

-

During the day, during his adventures with the Ponds, he often finds his mind wandering to her. He loves his friends, he does, but they’re human and even though they’re her parents they are not River. There is a gaping void in his being when she is away from him and at times his hands even start shaking like he’s some goddamn junkie who hasn’t had his fix in a while. Ponds notice, of course. Rory first, _of course_ . Asking if he’s okay, he has been acting weird, is he sick? He mutters excuses and lies. _Humans_. He doesn’t need them (except of course he does), they’re better off without him (and that, at least, is not a lie). Drops them off. Picks up River, not from university, an older one. He remembers

_a woman, cheeks hollow and eyes dead, stringy hair matted with blood, and there’s blood on his hands too, he can’t recall how it got there, he remembers being angry, so so angry, he remembers her shrieks when he opens his mind to hers and lets her feel the full force of a Time Lord’s mind, all the death and destruction and the infinite blackness of space and he hears River telling him to stop, that’s he’s going to burn the woman’s wits out, but he’s too far in and the woman is useless anyway_

the look on her face, he doesn’t want to face a River that young again.

There’s a soft gurgling sound at the back of his mind and a flash of red. He thinks it might be her lips.

-

She insists on returning to her cell after every outing. He begs, pleads. Your parents are gone, at home, he tells her. Nothing can stand in their way now. They can travel together for as long as they like.

“We can’t do that, sweetie.”

“But why not?”

“We just can’t.”

He rages. He is frustrated, angry, desperate. She is stoic and calm. He is willing to give himself to her completely and she just _rejects him_.

“I _need_ you.”

“You need someone to travel with.”

“Yes, _you_.”

She just shakes her head. There is a sadness in her eyes, but something else too. A desire, maybe. A longing. She loves him, doesn't she? Aren't you supposed to want to be with the one you love? So what's the problem here, exactly.

“I can’t – I’m – I’m not _good_ for you,” she says softly and he doesn’t understand that at all because she has been the best thing that has happened to him since the Time War. He wants to make her understand. He has to tell her how much he needs her, how broken he is without her. He knows the words but he doesn’t know how to say them so instead he kisses her. Gently. Hands cradling her perfect face. If she could just _see_ , surely she would understand that she cannot leave him. Maybe she’s ashamed of killing him, maybe that’s it. All this talk of not being good for him, she must be referring to his murder. He needs to show her he doesn’t care. It’s alright. He’s an addict and she’s his drug and he is way past caring whether it kills him or not. He breaks off the kiss and hugs her tight. “I don’t care that you killed me,” he whispers in her hair. She just sighs.

“No, sweetie, that’s not what I was talking about. You just – you need someone to stop you. Someone human.”

He lets go of her immediately. Not this. He doesn't need this now. His laugh is hollow. “ _Human_. I’ve had about enough of humans.”

She slaps him. Hard. Her calm façade breaks, she’s shouting now, about how he’s a bloody idiot and her parents are human and don’t you dare act like they are beneath you because you’d be dead without your friends, without your _human_ companions. And _she's_ half-human, isn't she? Whatever genetic modicfications she might have had, she'll never be a true Time Lord, and he should damn well accept that about her. He can’t even shout back. It’s Demon’s Run all over again except this time there will be no happy revelation to soothe the pain. She’s already strapping her vortex manipulator to her wrists and there is nothing he can do or say, he knows. He blinks and she’s gone.  
There’s a soft sound at the back of his mind he can’t quite distinguish. And an _itch_.

-

He’s lost after that. He knows what she said is true, but he doesn’t want to go back to Amy and Rory. He definitely doesn’t want to pick up another companion. He doesn’t want to be stopped. All he wants is to be with her but it seems the TARDIS is conspiring against him. Stormcage coordinates are locked. Every trace of River he finds leads to dead ends. He runs and he runs and he runs, for years, decades. He takes all the books from his library into his bedroom (he will not spend time in that place) and spends five years reading every book on archaeology he has. He hunts down depictions of River, scattered throughout history. A black and white photo of her at a party in the 1920s. A Greek vase showing a woman with exceptionally curly hair. A hologram from the 32nd century of her waving and winking. He hoards these items as if they could somehow bring her back to him, as if they could somehow be substitutes for her. He knows he’s going mad. ‘Madman with a box’, he called himself. Might as well live up to it.

About a 150 years into his madness he changes tactics. If he can’t find her, he’ll make her find him. Sends out messages to Stormcage. Carves her name into an ancient Egyptian tomb. A false cry for help in morse code from a Russian submarine.

Kills a man. A professor from the Luna University. Leaves a love note on

_my darling my dearest my sweetheart my bespoke psychopath I need you I need you I need you I need to kiss you and hold you please please come back please my love_

his headstone.

Nothing comes back. He retreats back into the TARDIS, crying, shouting at his ship because doesn’t she want to see River? What use is her being the Child of the TARDIS if the mother doesn’t care?

The TARDIS hums. A screen flickers on. Information from the Tesselecta.

Of course.

He knows where he can find River.

 


	3. the irreparable loss of holding someone dear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He is being torn apart by his own mind, loving her and loathing her and most of all loathing himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit of a filler chapter tbh.  
> Chapter title from Only Revolutions by Mark Z. Danielewski. Good book for tragic quotes about love.

On the shores of Lake Silencio, Utah, an impossible astronaut rises from the deep. She’s scared. He’s angry. They’re using her again, _his_ River, his strong, beautiful River. There’s a Silent standing behind Amy and Rory and the older River, and he feels bile rising up in his throat at the sight of it. Wants nothing more than to run over to it, grab it, bash its grotesque head in with his bare hands. But he has to keep up the charade. River is crying, pleading, begging, doesn’t want to kill him, and he wishes he could touch her, kiss her, wishes he wasn’t stuck in this robot suit. He wants to tell her it’s alright, she won’t have to kill him, not yet, he has a plan. It’s too risky now, though. She’s still in that suit, they could be listening in.

A part of him wants to not tell her at all. Let her think she killed him, let her feel what it’s like to be abandoned by someone she loves so completely. Two hundred years, my love, see how you like it. He is being torn apart by his own mind, loving her and loathing her and most of all loathing himself. He's tired. Let’s get this over with. Just shoot, dear, it’s okay, it’s fine, she’s forgiven, always and completely. Even for leaving him.

He supposes he should have known she wouldn’t give in that easily.

- 

Time breaks. There’s a flash of light and a blinding pain and then he wakes up and he’s still stuck in the damn robot. He gets imprisoned, he gets saved by Amy, brave, human Amelia. Rory’s there too, and he’s glad to see them both, he honestly is, but there’s only one person he needs right now. She’s there, of course, all curls and high heels and an eye patch and he thinks she looks ten times the evil boss lady than the withered form of Madame Kovarian behind her. Everything in this timeline is mixed-up, twisted, all of history all at once ripping at his insides, assaulting his senses with the sheer _wrongness_ of it all – except River, at the center of everything, the calm eye of the storm.

“Hi honey, I’m home.”

-

He tells her his plan, in the end, of course he does. She builds him a beacon and tells him he is loved by so many but he doesn’t _care_ about the many. He cares about her, and she loves him, and that is all he needs. How could he ever even consider letting her think he was dead? How could he ever consider _hurting_ her? He swears that from that moment on, he will always tell her everything. He will trust her, completely, unconditionally.

They get married on the top of a pyramid in a dying timeline and he thinks that is just fitting. Time heals, his robot suit gets shot and burned. He vaguely registers the sound of Amy crying and he feels a pang of guilt. But they’ll be fine, his Ponds. Better off without him, anyway.

There’s still that _itch_.

-

It seems that, just like with River, he can’t stay away from Amy and Rory. One scolding from a widow, and he's back in their arms. It’s so easy, slipping back into that pattern of adventures with the Ponds and nightly dates with River. He starts feeling a bit like his old self again. Feels like he’s found something he hadn’t even noticed he’d lost. It’s not the same, though. Amy and Rory are older now, they need time for themselves, don’t want to stay on the TARDIS all the time. He’s a bit annoyed, really. He came back for them, and this is how they repay him? Well then. If they want their own life away from him, that’s fine. He’s got something better, anyway. He’s got River. She can travel with him. He knows she declined when he asked previously, but that River was older. No harm in trying again. All he wants is to spend some alone time with his wife. He tells her this one night while they’re lying in bed together. She seems a bit wary.

“Not _forever_ , of course. I’ll go back to them. Doesn’t mean we can’t travel alone for a bit.” His head is resting on her chest, her hands treading through his hair. He can’t see her face, but he can almost feel her biting her lips. This River is still young, only a year or so in prison.

“I don’t know, sweetie. We’ve never done that before. You might get sick of me.”

He turns his head and presses a kiss just above her breast, to her collarbone, to her perfect lips. “I could never get sick of you. It’d be like getting sick of the TARDIS. Impossible.” She smiles at him. He wants to drown in that smile.

“Okay. Just for a while.”

-

The first few weeks are filled with running and laughing and rescuing planets. It’s a bit boring, if he’s honest with himself, but he’s with River and that more than makes up for it. There’s that _itch_ he needs to scratch and he’s pretty sure he knows what it is. He’s afraid to bring it up though, not sure how she’ll react.

She brings it up herself eventually.

“I want to kill Kovarian.”

He beams, nods, starts rattling off plans and places they can look. “We’ve got the element of surprise now, since they think I’m dead, so it should be a lot easier to find her. Although if she remembers the alternate timeline, she might have fled the order, considering how willing they were to just throw her away. All this time she thought she was a big deal, ha! Shows how much you can trust people you can’t even remember. D’you think we’ll be needing those eye patches? I mean, we’re going after Kovarian but she might have some of those bobble-headed nuisances with her. Wouldn’t be bad to take down a few of them, too.”

She’s watching him dash around the console, slightly concerned look on her face. “So you’re just... okay with this then?”

“Helped you when you were in university too, didn’t I? We had the same goal back then. Just didn’t work out so well.” He smiles. “This time will be different, I promise.”

“Right. I just... didn’t expect you to be so... eager.”

He stops his fidgeting with the scanner. Strides over to her and takes her tiny hands in his. “They hurt you. They need to pay for that.” He brings one hand up to stroke her cheek. “I’d do _anything_ for you, River, do you understand? Anything.” 

 


	4. by me all levees will break

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There’s a shriek and a bang and a swear, and then they’re eye to eye with the wretched woman. She’s got a gun aimed at them, eyes wild and panicking. “ _You_ ,” she gasps.  
> “Good morning to you too, _Madame_ ,” the Doctor responds cheerfully. Kovarian just stares, and then turns her attention to River, who has her gun pointed steadily at the Kovarian’s head.  
> “What’s this then, Melody? Taking a younger version of him with you to kill me, is that it? You’ve got some nerve, girl.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Only Revolutions by Mark Z. Danielewski AS ALWAYS. It's a good book ok don't judge.

His hunch about Kovarian having fled the Silence turns out to be correct. There’s a bit of bribing and threatening people, and they soon find out she’s governing a small cloning factory on a jungle moon orbiting New Earth. The warm climate he could do without, but on the other hand there’s River in shorts and a tank top, so it’s not all bad. The facility itself isn’t much: it’s small, hidden away in the rainforest, its defences laughable. Keeps out the TARDIS, sure, but a bit of hacking with the sonic and a few well-aimed hits with River’s silenced gun, and they’re strolling through the front doors without a soul stopping them.

The factory (which is mercifully air-conditioned) is abuzz with humans working feverishly on producing, assembling, training clones. He assumes the clones are for hard labour, much like the Flesh he saw so long ago. Can’t spot any hint of militaristic operations, for which he is glad. Means he won’t have to destroy the facility and put all of these people out of a job. Although there is a voice at the back of his mind whispering that _it would be quite a lot of fun, seeing this place going up in smoke, wouldn’t it?_ He’ll discuss it with River later, for now they have Kovarian to find and revenge to exact. They stride past workers and supervisors, none of whom even bat an eyelid at them. Maybe it’s something in the way they carry themselves, in the authoritarian look on their faces, that makes the people turn their heads, look away. Maybe they think they’re here for business, although neither the Doctor nor River look very business-like – all sweaty, her in her combat boots and him, tweed discarded, with rolled up shirtsleeves. Maybe they can feel what’s coming.

He’s scanning the area, looking for Kovarian, feeling River doing the same next to him. She tugs at his arm.

“There.”

He looks up. There are windows overlooking the factory floor, and he spies an elevator leading up to what he presumes is an office. The windows are made from matted glass, but he can see a dark figure moving around behind them.

“Gotcha.”

-

They kick down the door (or, well, he sonics the door and _River_ kicks it). There’s a shriek and a bang and a swear, and then they’re eye to eye with the wretched woman. She’s got a gun aimed at them, eyes wild and panicking. “ _You_ ,” she gasps.

“Good morning to you too, _Madame_ ,” the Doctor responds cheerfully. Kovarian just stares, and then turns her attention to River, who has her gun pointed steadily at the Kovarian’s head.

“What’s this then, Melody? Taking a younger version of him with you to kill me, is that it? You’ve got some nerve, girl.” She laughs, shakily, her arms twitching. She really looks pathetic, the Doctor thinks. Her cheeks are hollow, there are dark circles under her eyes (both eyes, no eye patch, and how empty her face seems without it), and overall she just looks frail. Leaving the Silence has done her no good; there is hardly anything left of the confident, smug woman who taunted him at Demon’s Run.

River smirks. “Oh, bless your heart, Kovarian. You don’t know. Well, of course you don’t, the Doctor made sure you wouldn’t.” Kovarian looks confused, eyes flicking from River to the Doctor. “Sweetie, why don’t you explain my dear _caretaker_ what happened?”

“With pleasure,” the Doctor says. Kovarian is becoming progressively paler and more wide-eyed. “It’s quite simple really: I didn’t die.” He spreads his arms, grinning. “Surprise!”

“No,” Kovarian mutters. Her hands start shaking violently. “No, no, no, impossible, we made _sure_ – you can’t have – no, _no, NO_!” She’s screaming now, eyes bulging out of their sockets, looking positively mad. River laughs and takes a step in Kovarian’s direction. “ _STAY BACK OR I’LL SHOOT YOU! DON’T THINK I WON’T, GIRL!_ ” Kovarian screeches.

“You forgot to take the safety off,” River remarks drily. Kovarian takes her eyes off River to look at her gun.

Wrong move.

With an almost casual flick of her blaster, River shoots the weapon out of Kovarian’s hand. It clatters to the ground, causing it to fire a single shot into empty air.

“Oops. I lied.” River grins, almost looks like a cat who’s trapped her prey in a corner. “Doctor dear, could you pick up that gun? Someone could get hurt.

“Of course, honey. Might be a good idea to tie up Madame here. Wouldn’t want her to run away while we have our little chat.”

River nods, taking out a pair of handcuffs and instructing Kovarian to sit on one of the office chairs while she ties her up.

“I do love how you always have handcuffs,” the Doctor muses. “Very convenient.”

“I’ll have to burn these after, though. I’m not using handcuffs that have been touched by _her_.”

“Such a waste, really. I liked those.”

“Oh, I know you did.”

Kovarian makes a retching sound. “You are disgusting.”

“So rude, Kovarian.” The Doctor strolls over to the window overlooking the factory, the glass clear from this side. “So what’s all this then? A cloning facility is a bit of a step down from being in charge of the Silence.”

Kovarian scoffs. “I was hardly ever _in charge_ , they made that quite clear. Such ungrateful creatures. I gave them purpose, _I_ made them more than the priests they once were, and how do they repay me? They kill me in that alternate timeline. Once time was restored and you were dead, well... I figured they would try to get rid of me sooner or later. And cloning is a fairly profitable business.”

“And you would know quite a bit about cloning, wouldn’t you?” River says softly. She’s pacing - or maybe it’s more _prowling_ \- in front of her former caretaker.

“It’s not Flesh we’re using here, but yes, my expertise does come in handy.”

“As does your experience in hiding like a coward.” The Doctor steps away from the window, sauntering over to stand beside River. “Now, before my dearest wife gives you what you deserve, I have some questions –” he starts, but Kovarian interrupts him, laughing.

“ _Wife_? You’re joking, right? You _married_ her?”

He smiles. “Such a basic mistake, wasn’t it? Create the perfect psychopath, introduce her to the Doctor...” He winds an arm around River’s tiny waist, looks at her glorious face, feeling his hearts swell to an almost painful extent, simply by being so close to her. “Who else was I going to fall in love with?”

Both Kovarian and River snort. “Cheesy, my love. Very cheesy,” River remarks fondly. The Doctor bops her nose.

“Oh, you love it.” He lets go of River’s waist, but not before planting a kiss on her cheek. Walking over to Kovarian, he squats in front of the chair the woman is bound to, looks her right in the eye. “Now, a little Q and A. I think I deserve to know why I had to die, don’t I? Why you had to steal a girl away from her parents to kill me.”

“To save the universe. To prevent Silence from falling. You know that, I know you know. Silence will fall –”

“– when the question is asked, yes. But what does that _mean_? What kind of silence? What does it have to do with me? I’m rather fond of the universe, you know, if you had just explained to me _why_ , we could have worked together. Figure this thing out. No kidnapping babies needed.”

“It means chaos. War. Death. The death of everything.”

“See, now we're getting somewhere. But _how_? How will everything die? How could a question being answered mean the end of the universe?”

Kovarian has the gall to _smile_ . “Oh, wouldn't you like to know. I'm afraid that's... how does she say it, _spoilers_?”

The Doctor laughs. Hollow, loud, angry. Grabs Kovarian’s face and forces her eyes to meet his. “Don't you _dare_. Don't you dare say that word. You are in no position to withold information now.”

“What are you gonna do, torture it out of me? I suppose you might, we've all heard the tales of what Time Lords do in wartime.” Kovarian mutters. A memory flickers behind his eyes, buried in the fog, a memory of

_death and destruction and the smell of burning flesh and crazed screams behind closed doors, Romana's fingers digging into his shoulders at night while she whispers the names of all the people that died that day, the people that they will resurrect, but they won't have their names anymore, they won't even be people anymore, they'll be experiments, they'll be improved, as they call it, but it's all for a good cause, isn't it, she whispers, it's all to end the war, and the end justifies the means and he lets her lie to him, to herself, because the lies are all that seperates them from the madness_

a nightmare.

“Tell me. Tell me why.”

“Or what?”

“Or I'll _make_ you tell me. One way or another.”

Kovarian laughs. “Oh, look at you. The big bad Doctor. Hasn't anyone told you that foreknowledge is dangerous?”

“Still making jokes? I'm not sure you understand the gravity of the situation,” River snarls. “Or the danger your life is in at the moment.”

“And _you_ don't understand the danger the universe is in while he is still alive, my dearest. Oh, I could tell you. I could tell you everything, sure. But you know, the more I think about it, the more I think the universe deserves being destroyed by you. She told me,” Kovarian nods at River, “in the other timeline, about all those people willing to save you. _A million, million voices_ , ha! Blind idiots. We tried to warn them. They wouldn't listen to _her_ , they wouldn't listen to me, so let them burn.”

“Her?” The Doctor frowns. “Who –“

“You had to die at Lake Silencio,” Kovarian interrupts. “And that is all I will tell you.”

“Yet River nearly killed me in Berlin,” the Doctor says. Behind him, he hears River’s breath catch slightly. A painful memory for her, no doubt, or maybe she’s remembering the happier times, the revelation, the kiss.

“It wasn’t something we’d planned,” Kovarian admits. “We didn’t think she’d go after you without specific orders from us. In the end, it all worked out though, didn’t it? She needed to be River Song for you to fall in love with her, and she needed Berlin to become River Song.”

It’s silent for a few seconds.

“You... wanted us to fall in love?” River says, her confusion mirroring the Doctor’s.

“Of course. Well, we wanted the Doctor to fall in love with you, not vice versa. Love, sentiment, attachment, those are dangerous feelings for an assassin to have. Ruined our plans. You could have been so much more, dear Melody.” A small smile flashes across her twisted features. There is something gentle about the way she looks at River. Almost motherly.

“Sorry, no, why’d you want me to fall in love with her?” He’s let go of Kovarian’s face. It’s not needed anyway, Kovarian is staring him down, smug.

“You wouldn’t come down to Lake Silencio for someone you didn’t care for, would you? Wouldn’t walk right into a death trap for a stranger. You’re known for doing foolish things for people you love. Why do you think we took Amy and Rory’s child? It’s not just that she was conceived in the TARDIS. They were your best friends; you would care for their child as well. You falling for her, well, that was just the icing on the cake.” Kovarian smiles, suddenly every inch the woman he knew from Demon’s Run. “It was quite amusing. Especially your little... episode after you’d dropped off your friends.”

The Doctor glances over his shoulder. River’s frowning, mouths ‘ _episode?_ ’ at him. He shakes his head. _Later_. He stands up. “Well, no matter, I’m here now. Alive and well. So what will happen?”

“I don’t know. I always thought your death was a fixed point, but perhaps you simply needed to _appear_ dead. I have no idea. I’m not a Time Lord after all, and the technology we used to read time streams was crude.” She leans forward as much as she can, trapped as she is. She looks up at him, contempt oozing from her eyes. “I do know this. You will still have to die, or Silence _will_ fall. And we will all be worse off if it does.”

He meets her gaze with equal contempt. “Too bad you won’t be around, then.”

“Oh, what are you going to do, _kill_ me? Please, you don’t have the guts.”

“He won’t. I will.” River steps forward. She has procured a knife from... who knows where, really. Twirling it in her hand, smile curling around her lips.

“He won’t let you,” Kovarian says, but there is doubt creeping into her voice. “You won’t let her, I know you, Doctor. You’ll lock me up somewhere cold and dreadful, but you won’t let her kill me.”

The Doctor takes a few steps back, leans against a shoddy desk. “That’s your problem, _Madame_ , you don’t know me at all.”

River puts the tip of the knife under Kovarian’s chin, pushing her head up. “Don’t worry, I’ll make it slow.” She nearly _purrs_. Puts more pressure on the knife. A drop of blood swells up, glistening ruby red. Kovarian makes a pitiful, panicky noise, almost a squeak.

“Melody, Melody, no, stop it, this isn’t you –”

“You _made_ me this. A killer.”

“But you’re with him now, you married him, no doubt go around saving the innocent, healing the universe, you changed, Melody –”

“ _River_ ,” River growls. “My name is River Song.”

“River, River please,” Kovarian whispers. Tears well up in her eyes, roll down her sunken face. Actual tears. It's strange, he hadn't thought of Kovarian as human before. She was always just Madame Kovarian, the crazy, evil lady trying to kill him. _She still is_ , he thinks stubbornly, _this is just an act, that's all it is. A desperate last attempt to save her own skin_.

“Yes, I made you what you are,” the woman whispers, and again there's that strangely gentle smile. “And you're _perfect_. You're just like – you're my perfect Melody. And I'm so – I'm so proud.”

“ _Proud_?” River laughs. “Proud of what, my failure to kill the Doctor?”

“He corrupted you,” Kovarian hisses. “Swept you off your feet with his _charm_ and his stupid phone box. But I know you can still do it, you can still save all of us, you can –“

“Oh, cut it out,” River says, rolling her eyes. “I'm not brainwashed anymore, your manipulation won't get you anywhere.”

“Then leave me, leave me to rot in some cell, but please, Melody – River, please, my child –”

“I am _not_ your child.” River slashes, the knife sweeping across Kovarian’s face. A deep gash forms, stretching from Kovarian’s left cheek almost up to her right temple. Blood streams down her face and the Doctor is involuntarily reminded of

_a creature helplessly lying on the ground, protective shell destroyed, tentacles twitching and twisting in agony, liquid seeping out from its hideous skin and the Doctor laughs and laughs and laughs because it is only one creature and they’ll never win this war unless, unless, but he won’t think of that, he can’t do what she asked of him, so he runs and runs and runs_

a different time, a different world, a different woman he loved. Laughter bubbles up in his throat, toxic, burning. Kovarian’s wild eyes find his.

“Stop her, stop her please, you have to –” Her words are lost in another scream as River plants the knife in her shoulder. He shakes his head and laughs again. River glances over her shoulder, slightly worried look on her face. He must seem mad, he knows, but everything is just so _funny._

“You know, I ought to thank you,” he muses. Kovarian looks up at him, panting heavily, one eye closed because of the blood that’s seeping down into it. “For River, I mean. I don’t think I would’ve – I mean, without you, she would have been human. Normal. As beautiful and smart, no doubt, with her parents, but still... you made her human-plus. Gave her the lifespan of a Time Lord.” He walks over to River, looking at her reverently. She smiles, but still looks a bit worried. “I was so scared,” he whispers. “So scared of falling in love with a human again, but then I found out you weren’t, you were like _me_. All this time I thought I was going to be alone forever, but _here you are_. My River.” He rests his forehead against hers, closing his eyes. Let’s his mind brush River’s – a dazzling array of purples and golds and a string of TARDIS blue tying it all together.

Suddenly, Kovarian laughs; breathy, desperate. River turns her head at that, and the Doctor reluctantly breaks the link between their minds to focus on the wretched woman.

“Want to let us in on the joke, Madame?” he sneers. Next to him, River takes his hand, squeezing it gently, as if to calm him down, but he’s fine, he doesn’t need calming down, everything is _fine_.

“Just… you. This. All our work, for this. Our order thwarted by _love_. Suppose I should have known. Well, you can keep her, Doctor. Go gallivanting around the universe with your wife. Die together when Silence falls. I’m sure it’ll be very romantic.”

“Better than having _you_ still around,” River mutters. Kovarian laughs again.

“ _Whore_.”

A strange calmness descends over the Doctor _._ He lets go of River’s hand, gets up close to Kovarian. Smiles.

“What did you just call her?” His voice is quiet, but there is a slightly strained quality about it.

“Sweetie, don’t. She’s just trying to provoke you.” River’s words don’t even reach him. His face is inches from Kovarian’s.

“You heard me,” the wretched woman whispers, quiet enough that only the Doctor can hear her. All that motherly softness gone from her voice. “She’s nothing, you know. Just a weapon. An experiment. And a failed one, at that. We were planning on killing her after she’d dealt with you. Toss her away like a piece of machinery that’s gone obsolete. Oh, does it hurt, me talking about her like that? Because you _love_ her? She’s a failure. That’s what you married. A broken little _who_ – “

Something in the Doctor _snaps_.

His fist crashes into her face before she can finish the sentence.

And again.

And again and again and again his hands descend on her, bruising flesh and crushing bone and she doesn’t even make a sound and that just makes him angrier. There’s blood everywhere but he hardly notices it with the red haze that seems to have settled over his eyes. Somewhere he can hear River yelling, but it’s muffled and distant, like he’s underwater, and his movements feel like he’s underwater too, all slow and heavy. He’s lost all sense of time. He might have been doing this for all eternity, or just a few seconds; he doesn’t know and he’s not capable of caring at the moment.

Until he feels a soft hand on his shoulder and her voice:

“ _Stop._ ”

His hands drop to this sides immediately. He turns around, staring at his wife in shock.

“ _It’s enough. You need to stop._ ”

She’s speaking Gallifreyan, and somehow the sound of it paralyzes him.

“ _Step away from her. Just – just step away._ ” Her pronunciation isn’t perfect, there’s a hint of her own accent slipping through, but it’s _his_ language. How long has it been since he’s heard someone actually speak it? He thinks he must have heard it when – when _they_ tried to break the lock, but he’s pushed those memories away. Tries not to think about the second time he condemned his people to their death. This isn’t like that. She isn’t

 _sat on that throne with that crown of electronics around her head, no no no no you can’t do this let me do this he says but she speaks words of comfort and promise and it’s okay it’s not over for you and it’s not but it_ is _, it’s over before it has started and everybody knows that everybody dies but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt every time_

like them, she’s not a failure. She’s a miracle.

Behind him, Kovarian stirs. He doesn’t dare turn around again to look at her, knowing he’ll see the carnage he inflicted on her.

“You gonna finish this or what?” Her speech is slurred and slow, and her breathing more like wheezing.

“Giving up then, are you?” He’s surprised he actually manages to speak, even if he does sound slightly hysterical.

“What do you want me to do?” Kovarian asks. “Tried the begging already. ‘S not gonna help anymore now. Maybe you’re too much of a coward to kill me, but your wife isn’t, right Melody? My own fault, I suppose. You want me dead and I... I don't blame you, my child. But _you_ ,” she says, and even though he still has his back to her he can feel her gaze burning into him. “ _Turn around_. If you have any shred of decency left in you, turn around and look me in the eye, Doctor.”

So he does.

He inhales sharply at the sight of his own handiwork. Her entire face is a mess. Bruised, broken, bleeding. It has started to swell up, too, her eyes more like slits now. He wants to laugh again. He’s positive that Kovarian can read his expression despite her limited vision as she grins, showing off several missing teeth.

“God, look at you. Maybe we did do something right after all. You were always mad, but _this_ … This is just a whole new level. And this is what you married, Melody. Well, you can have him.”

Neither the Doctor nor River can say anything. All they can do is stare as Kovarian leans forward.

“She’s going to kill you,” she hisses. Beside the Doctor, River freezes. “You can play house all you want but those years of training can’t be washed away by _love_. She’s still my little Melody, and one day she’s going to wake up, see the monster you are and put a –“

River rams the knife through Kovarian’s throat.

 


	5. I will walk heavy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “We just – we just need to talk, but she wouldn’t listen, she just… took the TARDIS here and – and kicked me out. Out of my own ship.” He laughs, a touch hysterical.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from OH YOU KNOW WHERE IT'S FROM I'm predictable what can I say.

They leave the body there, tied to the chair. Tell one of the factory overseers to find a new boss. There’s still that voice at the back of the Doctor’s mind telling him that it’d be much more satisfying to blow the entire place to kingdom come, but one look at River’s face tells him they should not spend any more time here. They don’t speak the entire way back to the TARDIS, River walking a few feet in front of him. He swears he can hear her crying softly, but he dare not approach her until they reach the ship. When they get to the TARDIS, her doors swing open for River immediately. Mother watching out for her child, he supposes. He can feel a small tug on his mind, and a sort of soothing feeling washes over him. River must feel it too; he can see her shoulders relax ever so slightly.

“River…”

“I’m going – I’m going to bed.”

“You’ve got blood all over, maybe we could take a shower –“

“I’m going to bed.”

He reaches out to her, wanting to comfort her, hold her. “River, dear –“

“ _Don’t touch me!_ ” She whips around, catches his hand by the wrist, holding it in her iron grip. He looks at her, shocked. Her eyes red and puffy from crying, her lip is quivering ever so slightly. As if immediately regretting her words, she drops his hand.

A heavy silence hangs between them. Abruptly, River turns to the console, starts flipping switches and punches in coordinates.

“River, what are you –“ he begins, but he’s cut off by the TARDIS lurching suddenly, throwing him back against the railing. There’s a wheezing, groaning as the ship takes off. “The brakes,” he mumbles, slightly out of breath. “You forgot the brakes.”

“I don’t – _care_ – about the bloody – stupid – _brakes_ ,” River snarls. “You’re going to my parents’.”

“What?!” he says, taken aback. “River, let’s not – we can talk about this, whatever has gotten you so upset, we can –“

“ _You are going to my parents and you’re going to stay with them until you’ve – until you’ve come to your_ goddamn _senses._ ” She’s speaking in Gallifreyan again, though in her anger, it’s not coming out as fluid as before. Another groan and a _thunk_ , and the TARDIS has landed.

“ _Until_ I’ve _come to my senses? I’m not the one sending her own husband away without even_ talking _to him!_ ”

She marches towards him now, roughly pushing him to the doors. “Out.”

“River –“

“ _Get. Out._ ” She pushes him again, harder. He stumbles backwards, nearly trips over his own feet, and crashes into the doors.

“You can’t throw me off my own ship! River!” he protests. This is ridiculous, she can’t _do_ this.

“The hell I can’t,” she growls, snapping her fingers. Behind him, the doors swing open, and he tumbles out of the ship onto soft, wet grass. For a second, the bright morning light blinds him, but then he blinks and sees the doors of the TARDIS slam shut. He sits there, frozen, awaiting the groan-wheeze of dematerialisation. It doesn’t happen. He scrambles up, reaches for the doors. Shut. Locked. However hard he tugs on them, however frantically he snaps his fingers, the TARDIS won’t budge.

“Let me _in!_ ” he yells, banging his fists on the doors now. “River! Come on, just – just let me in, we can _talk_ about this! RIVER!” He keeps banging and banging, begging, pleading her to let him inside. To say something, anything. “River, please, please, just OPEN THE DOOR!” His voice is getting desperate now. She can’t do this to him, _she can’t leave him again, not now, not ever, please please please River my dear please I’m begging you_.

A door opens, but not the TARDIS door. A voice calls his name, but not River’s voice. A flash of red and Amy is at his side, tugging at his arms while he continues his barrage on the ship. And now Rory’s there too, telling him to please calm down, what’s going on, _why the hell is there blood on your hands_.

Oh.

Yeah.

He stops then. He’d forgotten about the blood. It’s mostly dried up, but he has managed to get some of it on the TARDIS anyway.

“Doctor,” Amy says softly, voice shaking a bit. “What’s going on? You’ve got blood all over, why is there –“

“It’s not mine,” he mumbles.

“River –?“ Rory asks, panic creeping into his voice.

“No, no, River’s… she’s fine. She –“ His voice breaks. “She kicked me out.”

“What? What do you mean?” Inside Amy and Rory’s house, a phone starts ringing. “Don’t mind that now,” Amy mutters. “What are you talking about, Doctor?”

“We just – we just need to talk, but she wouldn’t listen, she just… took the TARDIS here and – and kicked me out. Out of my _own ship_.” He laughs, a touch hysterical. The phone is still ringing. Amy sighs, then resolutely tugs on his arm.

“Right, we’re going inside. You, Doctor, are going to clean up, I’m going to answer that bloody phone, and then you’re going to tell us exactly what’s going on.”

-

They hurry inside, Amy ordering Rory to take care of the Doctor while she goes to pick up the phone (whoever’s calling must be very insistent, it ought to have stopped ringing ages ago). Rory gently directs the Doctor to the sink, turning on the tap.

“I mean, you’d best take a shower later, but for now—“ he mumbles. The Doctor nods silently, while Amy’s annoyed voice drifts towards them from the other side of the house.

“Alright, I don’t care who you are but you best make it short, I’m in the middle of a – River?“

The Doctor snaps his head around so fast he swears he hears something crack. He rushes out of the kitchen (with behind him Rory half-heartedly telling him to calm down), trips over a pair of discarded shoes and plants his face right in front of Amy’s feet. She quirks an eyebrow at him.

“Graceful.”

“Give me – need to talk to her, please,” he pants, struggling to get up while simultaneously trying to reach for the phone. He can faintly hear River’s voice on the other side. Amy listens, nods.

“Yeah, of course. No, I get it.”

“ _Amy_ ,” he whines, finally standing upright again. “The phone, please.”

“Sorry Doctor, she doesn’t want to talk to you.”

“She doesn’t–“ He laughs. “Amy, don’t be silly, give me the phone.”

“No.”

“ _Amelia Pond_ ,” he growls through clenched teeth, glaring at her like she was an alien force threatening humanity. “Give. Me. THE BLOODY PHONE.” He lunges at her, but before she can even flinch or step back, he gets yanked out of reach, arms forcefully pinned behind his back. Rory’s breath is hot on his neck, and if he could turn his head around, the Doctor was sure he’d be staring right in the righteous eyes of a 2,000 year old centurion – or a very angry husband.

“Don’t you _dare_ talk to her like that,” Rory says, his voice still calm, which is somehow more terrifying. “Sword, remember?”

The Doctor swallows, nods.

“Apologise to her.”

He looks at Amy then, shame filling him when he sees her sad, disappointed eyes.

“’M sorry,” he mumbles.

“Are you going to behave like a normal person now?”

“Yes. Sorry.”

“Good.” Rory lets him go.

“Is he done throwing his temper tantrum?” River’s voice pipes up from the phone. He feels his blood starting to boil again.

“ _Temper tantr_ —“

“Oh, shut up!” Amy snaps at him. “Go wash your hands. Rory, keep an eye on him.” She resolutely turns away from him, muttering softly into the phone. For a fraction of a second, a vision swims in front of his eyes, a possibility, a timeline stretching and pulsing in front of him, but the thought is too violent and repulsive so he pushes it away. He’s not that far gone,

_not yet,_

they're not really his thoughts anyway. It’s just one of those _things_ , you know? Like standing on a bridge and thinking about jumping when you don’t want to. He’s fine.

He wants to throw up.

He’s only half aware of Rory leading him back into the kitchen, roughly pushing his hands under the streaming water. “What happened?” Rory asks, voice surprisingly warm, comforting. The Doctor doesn’t answer, opting instead to start vigorously rubbing his hands, colouring the water red-pink. “Doctor…”

“Why don’t you ask your _daughter_?” the Doctor sneers. The blood on his hands is proving to be rather resistant. Perhaps warmer water –

“I’m asking _you_. Look,” Rory sighs. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you. I mean, you look _terrible_ —“

“Always so polite, those Romans.”

“You _do_ , honestly. And you’ve been acting… weird. For a while now, actually. Ever since Berlin, I think. Did something go wrong when she brought you back?”

“What?” He finally looks up from his hands, incredulous. “No! Of course not, don’t be ridiculous.”

“Well I don’t know! I’m just trying to find a reason for your behaviour. I’m concerned, I mean, I _am_ a nurse—“

“Yes, you’ve only told everyone that about a billion times.”

“— _and_ , I’m your father-in-law.” Both men flinch at that. “Alright, still weird, but look... we're family now, even if we're the most messed up, crazy family ever. I care about you. A lot.”

“I'm touched.”

“Stop that,” Rory says, sighing. “Stop hiding from me. Tell me what's going on.” He frowns. “Your hands are clean now, by the way.”

“You wouldn't understand,” he mumbles. _It's not getting off, the blood, it's not getting –_

“Why, because I'm _human_?”

The Doctor doesn't answer, fixating on his own hands, on the red still clinging to his skin, seeping in his pores, resisting the hot water cascading over it. _Yes,_ wants to say, _yes because you're human. Because you're human and you're_ good _and you have never felt anger like this, hatred like this, despair like this._ He fixates on his hands because he doesn't want to see Rory's face, that good, human face, with his good, human soul.

“I'm 2000 years old, remember? I'm older than you. And seriously, you can stop washing your hands, it's starting to look – ”

The Doctor laughs. “Don't. Please don't. It's not the same, _we_ 're not the same. I've seen things – wars, you wouldn't –”

“Doctor, your hands –”

“Oh, I know what you're thinking, 'but I've seen wars too!'” the Doctor sneers, still avoiding Rory's concerned gaze, still concentrating on his hands, scrubbing furiously, just to get it off, get it off please, and his voice is growing louder and louder. “ _It's not the same_ , it is not the same in the slightest. You haven't seen _anything_ , you haven't witnessed the horrors that I have, you wouldn't be able to _process_ the things that I've seen, your mind would _collapse_ in on itself –”

“For God's sake, _you're burning your hands!_ ” Rory shouts, grabbing the Doctor's hands and jerking them away from under the scalding hot water. Like it matters, like that's going to stop him from continuing his tirade, it doesn't even hurt anyway, it's just red, red, red.

“You haven't _lost_ what I've lost, you haven't _done_ – the things I've done, if you knew – if you _knew –_ ” He wrenches his hands from Rory's grip, eyes wild, toxic words pouring out of his mouth, unstoppable. He feels like he did with Kovarian, the pounding inside his head drowning out the rest of the world until it's just him and the red, always the red, and Rory, Rory –

Rory wraps his arms around him. Hushes him. Holds his shaking shoulders. Says, “Hey, hey, it's alright, it's fine.”

His knees press against the cold kitchen floor. When had he fallen to the ground? Had he not noticed his legs giving up under the strain of so many days, weeks without rest? His whole body is shivering, as a matter of fact. Maybe it has been doing that the entire time. Maybe he'd ignored his body wailing in pain, maybe the _itch_ had been the only thing keeping it going. His mind registers something wet on his cheeks, and he wonders how long he's been crying, and marvels at the fact that he's even capable of crying at all at this point. “I'm sorry,” he mumbles against Rory's shoulder, voice soft and cracked and hoarse.

“It's okay,” Rory whispers, stroking his back soothingly. “We're here for you. It's okay.”

-

He lets the Ponds fuss over him. Obediently eats the food they put in front of him, as they shoot worried glances at each other over the dinner table. Showers like Amy suggests, puts on Rory's old shirt and sweatpants when they're handed to him. He doesn't protest once when Rory ushers him to the guest bedroom to get some much-needed sleep. An odd sort of tranquility has settled over him. Or rather, it's the absence of the chaos that dwelled inside for so long. He's not sure if that's better.

There's a mirror in the bedroom, and for the first time in God knows how long, he looks upon his own features again. Or something resembling his own features, at least. He understands now, what Rory meant when he said he looked terrible, understands why Amy had trouble looking him in the eye. It's like looking at a mask of yourself made by someone who really, really hates you. Everything's just a bit uglier, the skin just a bit paler, the cheeks more sunken in. He's got more lines than he can remember. And the eyes... they're empty now, dead husks showing no emotion, but he can imagine the frenzied light they must've shone with before.

_maybe we did do something right after all_

He flops down onto the bed. There's a window next to it, looking out onto the back garden, and through the crack Amy and Rory's voices float up to him.

“...like a madman – I mean like a _proper_ madman.”

He shifts on the bed, straining his ears to hear the conversation. They must be sitting outside. Talking. About him.

“River said they tracked down Kovarian.” Amy's voice.

“Yeah?”

A pause.

“River killed her.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“That's... I won't pretend I never wished her dead myself, but still...” Rory's sounds unsure, conflicted.

“Yeah, I mean, I did kill her as well, but –”

“That was in an aborted timeline, Amy.”

“Still counts, we've been over this.”

“Amy –”

“ _Rory._ ” Her voice is a warning.

“I know, sorry.”

A few seconds silence.

“I guess... part of me is glad she's dead, I just wish she didn't have to do it,” Amy says softly. “River, I mean.”

“She needed the closure, I think.”

“Closure doesn't have to mean murder. And River's not a murderer.”

“She's not exactly an angel, either. Remember when she killed that Dalek?”

Amy snorts derisively. “That's a _Dalek_. Not a human being.”

“Kovarian might have been human, but what she did was monstrous.”

“ _I know_ , I'm not saying she was innocent! She kidnapped me, Rory, she took our child and brainwashed her! Do you think I don't know what she was?” Amy says, anger stealing into her voice. “All I'm saying is, taking a life isn't something you do lightly. I hated Kovarian, but I regret killing her. Every day, I regret it. Even if it was in an alternate timeline that never happened.” Her voice grows soft again. “And I'd hate for River to feel like that.”

Silence again.

“What'd she say, on the phone?”

“Not much. That she killed Kovarian, and that she and the Doctor had a row. And that she thought he needed some time with us.”

“She's probably right about that last part,” Rory mumbles.

“He's –” Amy's voice hitches. Did he hear a sob, right then? “When he was shouting at me, for a moment I thought – I really thought he was going to hurt me. The _look_ in his eyes...” She sounds betrayed. He can't blame her. “I feel like something's been wrong for a while now.”

“Yeah,” Rory says, “I got the same feeling. He's been off since Berlin.”

“I dunno, I think it might have started before that, even. Like, sometimes I'd just catch him staring into space, like his mind was somewhere else entirely.” She pauses. “Kinda reminded me of you, after the whole business with the Pandorica,” she says softly. “You get that empty stare sometimes.”

Nothing for a minute. The Doctor stares up at the ceiling, listening to the sound of the evening, crickets chirping, his own pulse in his ears. Then, Rory:

“Funny you should say that, because the Doctor told me I was nothing like him. That I hadn't seen what he'd seen and – well, it basically amounted to 'you're just a stupid human so shut up'.”

“He's really gone off the deep end, hasn't he?”

“Or maybe he was just finally saying what he really thought.”

“I don't believe that. For God's sake Rory, you can't look at him and tell me that's what he's normally like. He looks possessed.”

“Maybe he _is_ possessed. Possessed by a space demon. We'll have to get some holy space water and a space priest to space exorcise him,” Rory says drily.

“Not really in the mood for jokes now,” Amy snaps.

“Sorry. Stress getting to me.”

They sit in silence for a while.

“I feel like we could've prevented this,” Rory says suddenly. “Like we should've seen the signs and... I dunno, helped him. Somehow. I feel responsible.” He laughs weakly. “Responsible for a thousand year-old time traveling alien. How did we get here?”

Amy sighs. “I don't know, Rory. All I know is that something's really wrong with him. And I want it fixed. I want _my_ Doctor back.”

 


	6. and I will walk strange

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For a moment he forgets to breathe, time slowing down to a crawl as he stares at her, face awash with the pale glow of the moon, making her look like a ghost. And for a moment he's convinced she is, a ghost, a spectre come to haunt him. But then she smiles and sits down on the bed, like Amy had hours before, and the indent and the creaking tells him she's real, she's here. He bolts upright, gaping at her.
> 
> “River.”
> 
> “Hello sweetie.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Only Revolutions by Mark Z. Danielewski. Also, "the greatest love letters are always encoded for the one and not the many" is a quote from House of Leaves.

The following days pass in somewhat of a blur. Not a lot happens. Leadworth is, after all, one of the dullest towns in the world. He does chores around the house to keep himself busy, dodges Amy and Rory's continuous questions about his mental state. He doesn't even really have to lie. He doesn't know what's going on with him. All he knows is that he wants to talk to River, he wants to make things right between them. If he could just hear her voice, that would be enough. But River doesn't call again, and the doors of the TARDIS remain stubbornly shut. He waits, holds vigil in front of his ship for hours on end, until Amy drags him away and tells him to quit waiting around and do something. The irony isn't lost on him. Rory, meanwhile, seems to think the best kind of therapy would be getting the Doctor in some sort of trouble. He scans the internet and newspapers for strange happenings, mysterious crimes and signs of alien activity, but the Doctor waves it all away.

“Oh come on!” Rory says one morning, exasperated. The Doctor is lying on his bed, listlessly tossing his screwdriver in the air. “Ten UFO sightings in two hours, three people who claim they've been abducted, and a dog that's spontaneously grown an extra head! Doesn't that make you the least bit curious?”

The Doctor shrugs. “Not really.”

“What if the mutant dog starts murdering people?”

“I'm sure it'll sort itself out.”

Rory huffs in frustration and stomps out of the bedroom, passing Amy on the way out. “You deal with him, I gotta go to work.” Like he's a difficult child. Well, he _is_ their son-in-law. The Doctor sighs and closes his eyes. Can't they just leave him alone? He's perfectly fine with just wallowing in self-pity for a while. But Amy sits down on the bed, because of course she does.

“You can't just lie in bed forever,” she says softly.

“I can give it a shot.”

“It's not going to get better like this.”

“Maybe if you got me a nicer bed. This one's a bit hard.”

“You're being childish.”

He doesn't respond.

“Doctor?”

He keeps his mouth shut tight.

“For God's sake, you're not giving me the silent treatment, are you?”

“...”

“Fine. Whatever.” The bed creaks as she gets up and walks away. Her footsteps stop right in the doorframe.

“I know what it's like.”

He opens his eyes at a crack to peer at her. Arms folded, leaning against the door. She looks tired. A lot older than he remembers. It occurs to him that he doesn't even know how old she is now.

“I know you think we don't understand what you're going through. But don't forget those four psychiatrists. I had a lot of ups and downs after you left. Especially the second time.”

He averts his gaze, tries to shut her out, but her words pierce right through him.

“I know depression, okay? And maybe that's not what you have, but either way, you won't get better if you don't accept help. So just... indulge us, at least.” And with that, she walks away. And with that, he is left only with his thoughts and a feeling of intense guilt. He sighs. He didn't want this. He didn't want Amy and Rory worried, didn't want them upset because of him. He just wanted – he just –

 

He's not sure when he fell asleep, but when he awakes it's night and the house is silent. For a second he's confused as to why he woke up, but then something stirs in the darkness. Shadows twist and distort, and then she steps out into the light.

“Well then soldier, how goes the day? Or should that be night?”

For a moment he forgets to breathe, time slowing down to a crawl as he stares at her, face awash with the pale glow of the moon, making her look like a ghost. And for a moment he's convinced she _is_ , a ghost, a spectre come to haunt him. But then she smiles and sits down on the bed, like Amy had hours before, and the indent and the creaking tells him she's real, she's here. He bolts upright, gaping at her.

“ _River._ ”

“Hello sweetie.”

He just stares. All those things he'd wanted to say to her, all the words he'd collected for when he saw her again – gone. His mind turned blank by the shock of her appearance. Finally, he manages a sentence, in what he knows is the most pathetic, weak voice ever.

“You came back.”

River laughs softly. “No, not yet.”

“But –”

“Different me, who left you. I just did the party at Faros, remember that one? You were pretty young...”

He frowns, still confused. “The one where we stole the diamond?”

“Where we killed that guard.”

He remembe

_I shot him I shouldn't have fired I just got so angry I don't know why I shot him I shot but who cares it's just one human he meant nothing_

rs.

“Amy sent me a text. She must've meant it for the other me, the younger one. I guess the TARDIS rerouted it to me. Probably a good thing, I don't think the other me is ready for this now.”

“Ready for what? I don't understand –”

“We're just going to talk, darling, don't worry.”

“Talk. Okay. Sure.” He's not sure how to feel about all this. He's elated that she's here, of course, but there's a strange look on her face he can't quite decipher. The air around him suddenly seems to weigh much heavier on his lungs, all the regular night-time noises – a lone owl hooting in the distance, leaves rustling, the occasional dog barking – seem to have died, leaving only his and River's breathing. He's approaching some kind of tipping point, although he's not sure how he knows that or what it even means.

“How have you been?” she asks, like they're just having a normal conversation, like they're just two acquaintances meeting for coffee.

Terrible. “Fine.”

She laughs softly. “You were always bad at lying to me, Doctor.” She pauses, staring at him, still with that strangle glint in her eyes. “Killed any people lately?”

“I – what?” he stammers, taken aback by the question.

“You were so upset, after Faros. I understand not _wanting_ to kill someone, but it's not like you'd never done it before.”

“Why are we talking about this?” He shifts on the bed, uncomfortable.

“Because I want to.” The way she says it is almost like an order. There's a strange sort of... not hostility, but a slightly intimidating edge to her words. _Answer my questions or else –_ or else what? What would she do? Just leave? Hurt him? But no, she wouldn't – why was he even considering this? What sort of insidious ideas had Kovarian planted in his mind? He won't let her get to him, she's dead, he saw the light die in her eyes, he won't allow her to poison his thoughts from beyond the grave. River's his wife. She wants to talk about this, so he will.

“It's not like it gets easier,” he says softly. “You don't get used to killing people.”

“Hm.” River studies his face intently. “But you had no problem killing that professor at the Luna University for no good reason. That wasn't self-defence, or necessity, or sacrifice. That was just straight up murder.”

He flinches at her words. Of course, _of course_ that one was going to come back to haunt him. Deserved, of course, he knew, he knew he should never have – but what's done is done, you can't just turn back time and stop yourself from

_twirling the knife in his hands, nervously, the weight of it unfamiliar in his hands, and he thinks maybe he should've chosen a different weapon, or no weapon, maybe poison or drugs or an accident, happening at just the right time but then how would she know it was him? and there's no going back now anyhow, the man cowering in fear in front of him – what a pathetic sight he is, trembling and sweating and crying – and this is why he prefers monsters because you don't have to feel pity for monsters, you just kill them and they call you a hero, but no one would call him a hero for this, not for butchering this man, a teacher even, a wise man, someone he'd usually have respect for, but it's hard to feel respect – or pity, or empathy – when you've gone mad, so let's get it on with then, a well-placed stab in the heart should do it, quick and easy, just muffle the screams with your hand and don't worry about the red red red spilling onto your clothes, don't worry about anything but her, getting back to her, getting her back, and he's gotta leave a note right? she has to know who did this or it's just another pointless murder, another dead body in the night so he makes another mark, on the other side, where her other heart would be, where his other heart is shriveling up and dying like the man in front of him, a code just for them, just for her, because as he'd once heard – or read, or maybe even said himself, who knows, who cares – the greatest love letters are always encoded for the one and not the many_

doing something terrible. Well, _theoretically_ you could, especially with a time machine, but it would be wrong and dangerous. And who are you without mistakes to learn from, right? It is the mistakes you make, your failures, that shape you as much as your victories. Besides, who would miss that man? He was just an old professor. Just another human in a sea of millions. He wasn't important to

_his family – wife, two adult children, his three grandchildren – clad in black, weeping_

the universe, he would make no impact on anything or anyone. Killing him wasn't right, but... he could've done worse. It served a goal, at least.

“Well, that was – I wasn't quite... myself back then.”

“Or maybe you were. Maybe that's who you always are. Maybe the other you, the hero, the saviour, maybe he's the lie. Maybe 'Doctor' means 'warrior' after all.”

He stares at her green/blue/gold eyes, and a part of him is ready to open his mouth, to say _no, no, what are you talking about, that's nonsense_ , but another part of him forces him to keep silent, not saying _yes_ but not saying _no_ either.

“Or maybe 'warrior' isn't right either, because warriors usually fight _for_ something. And what would you be fighting for?”

_he ends up sticking a note on the man's grave afterwards anyway, just in case, just to be sure, he needs her to know, he needs her to see, he needs_

“You,” he whispers, without thinking, without doubt. She laughs softly, and he's suddenly very aware of how close she is sitting to her, of her hot breath stroking his face, of a stray curl tickling his cheeks, of her hand, sliding slowly up his thigh, feather-light, but that is enough to send electric shocks through his body.

“You know, I spent so long trying to figure out which you was the real you. The monster from Madame Kovarian's stories, or the hero from Amy's.” Her words are barely more than a whisper, only audible because she's so close to him now. He swallows hard.

“And did you figure it out?”

She laughs again, shifting her body until she is straddling him, one hand still creeping up his thigh, the other coming up to trace the pulse in his neck, and there's something predatory about that, about her nails lightly scratching the fragile skin there, like she's trying to find a weak spot, the perfect weak spot, and it occurs to him briefly that maybe that's exactly what she's doing. He's not sure if he's aroused or scared or both.

“Spoilers.”

“How is that spoilers?”

“Because I don't think you've figured it out yourself yet.”

“You're full of riddles today, aren't you?” he says, attempting light banter and flirtatiousness, but it's mostly coming out as tired.

“I'm always full of riddles. That's what attracted you to me in the first place, or so Amy tells me.”

“That's not the only thing that attracted me to you,” he murmers, placing his hands on her hips, desire suddenly rushing through his veins, reminding him how much he'd missed her, how much he'd missed her face and voice and body, her soft curves pressing against his sharp angles and the scent of her, like a thunderstorm, clinging to his skin, lingering on his sheets, in his ship, even hours after she's left and he's always loved that, the way she seemed to permeate every aspect of his life even when she wasn't there, even her absence leaving an impression, a River-shaped shadow he could never get rid of, never wanted to get rid of, was always drawn to, as if she's a black hole drawing him in, a dark, mysterious void he couldn't run away from no matter how hard he tried, a force stronger than time and space and light itself, a force he wanted desperately to explore, and he feels like no matter how long he's known her, he still hasn't gotten to the heart of her, but he's approaching now, the event horizon drawing near as time slows to a crawl, but right now, right at this one still moment in time, he wants no more of her engimas, doesn't care about unraveling the mystery that is River Song, he just wants to kiss her till she's breathless so he tries to capture her mouth with his, but if there's one thing he should've learned by now it's that River Song can never be caught. You can't cage a black hole. She tilts her head away from his, grinning like she's the bloody Cheshire Cat.

“Oh no, we'll be doing none of that tonight. This is my parents' house after all.” She leans in again, like she's challenging him, her thumb stroking his lower lip. “Good girls don't fuck their husbands in their parents' house. And I'm a very good girl,” she whispers, her voice sounding anything _but_ good. “And you're going to be a good boy. For now.” She leans back, hand leaving his face and he can't help but make a frustrated whining noise at the loss of touch. Apparently his discomfort is funny to her, as she chuckles softly. He can't say he shares her amusement.

“What are you doing here, River?” he asks, because he's really starting to get a bit annoyed now. Or maybe it's desperation, having her here but not being able to touch her like he wants, to talk to her like he wants, just her asking him strange questions and torturing him and he doesn't even have the comfort of knowing he made up with her because he _hasn't_ yet, it's not even the right River – not that there's a _wrong_ River, although this one certainly feels different, different from any River he's ever met and suddenly he can feel something, a strain on their timelines, a thread fraying, on the verge of snapping perhaps, or dissolving or evolving or never having existed at all? he's not sure but as soon as he tries to get a hold on it, the sensation goes away and he's just left with the normal looping, swirling, intertwining of their seperate-together golden

_red_

timelines.

“I just want you to think about what we just talked about. About who you are. But more importantly, I want you to _stop making my parents upset_.”

That last part comes out so unexpectedly harsh that the Doctor actually recoils, like she'd physically slapped him. She might as well. Her eyes are boring into him with a fiery intensity he's seen before, but only when she'd been facing monsters, people she wanted to destroy. Her mischievous grin nowhere to be seen.

“There are only three people in this world I care about,” she says, and she actually sounds threatening, “and that's you, Amy and Rory. I love you, _sweetie_ , but I'm not gonna let you make my parents sad. So either you get your act together or you _pretend_ to get your act together, but either way you make sure they're happy.”

He swallows. “And what if I can't make them happy? What if I just – don't know how to do it?”

“There's no room for 'can't' here, Doctor. You just do it. You plaster a smile on your face and you take them on adventures and you be their Raggedy Doctor, just like old times. Who you are in your private time, well...” The grin returns like lightning. “That's for you to figure out, hm?” And with a last stroke of his cheek, she slides off his lap to stand next to the bed, and next thing he knows she's already tapping in coordinates on her vortex manipulator. He scrambles off the bed, catching her wrist before she can push the last button.

“No, please,” he croaks, “don't – don't go.”

“Oh, sweetie. Don't worry. You'll see the other me soon enough.” She peels his hand off her wrist (can't be caught, remember?), and before he can reply – before he can beg, plead, bargain, anything – the air crackles with electricity, and his wife/killer/tormenter disappears once again.

And he's alone once again.

 


	7. only grass grows down abandoned streets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He does as she orders him. Gets his act together. Pretending, of course, but the Ponds aren't quite as good as reading his face as their daughter is. Although, Amy regards him with some suspicion when he bounces down the stairs in the morning, greeting them with a cheerful 'So how about that mutant dog, eh?' and a bright grin. He's probably overdoing it a bit, the smile just a bit too wide, the bounce in his step just a bit too bouncy, his rambling just a bit too whimsical.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Only Revolutions by Mark Z. Danielewski. Sidenote, thanks for all your lovely comments! You're all total cuties.

He does as she orders him. Gets his act together. Pretending, of course, but the Ponds aren't quite as good as reading his face as their daughter is. Although, Amy regards him with some suspicion when he bounces down the stairs in the morning, greeting them with a cheerful 'So how about that mutant dog, eh?' and a bright grin. He's probably overdoing it a bit, the smile just a bit too wide, the bounce in his step just a bit too bouncy, his rambling just a bit too _whimsical_. Nevertheless, Amy at least seems relieved he's not lying in bed staring at the ceiling anymore.

“You alright then?” she asks, interrupting the inane speech about dogs with no noses he'd started on.

“Oh, yes!” he says, smile on his face feeling unfamiliar and very forced, almost painfully so. “Right as rain. Well, not rain. Rain's not very right, is it? Unless you're in a desert and dying of dehydration, then rain's the most right thing you can get.”

“Well, he's certainly rambling as normal,” Rory mumbles.

“Hm. You sure made a quick recovery,” Amy says.

“Well,” the Doctor says airily, “it's like you said, I can't lie in bed forever.”

“Right.” She still doesn't seem convinced, but Rory gives her a look that says 'let's just go with it', so she shrugs and says, “Okay, mutant dogs it is.”

-

The mutant dogs turn out to be a hoax (he's almost genuinely disappointed – almost), but when they come back there's Brian and strange black cubes and a fresh mystery. It almost seems a bit too convenient, and he wonders if River has anything to do with it, or maybe an older version of himself helping out. Either way, he's thankful for anything that keeps Amy's worried gaze off him. He's a bit annoyed that UNIT has to be involved in this – he'd rather take care of this alone, would rather interact with as few people as possible – although it certainly is interesting to meet Kate (who introduces herself as merely Kate Stewart, but he'd been friends with the Brigadier for too long to not recognise certain traits in his daughter). None of it really keeps River off his mind, but at the very least it helps him settle into his role for the Ponds. He rattles off banter and jokes at lightning speed, feigns interest in the cubes as best he can. It takes quite a lot of self-restraint to not just tell the humans to sort it out themselves for once, but he has to do this. For Amy and Rory. For River.

Speaking of Amy, he can tell that she still isn't quite convinced by his charade. She tries multiple times to get him to talk to her, _properly_ talk to her, not spout technobabble and tell her he's feeling fine. He succeeds in evading her a few times, but one night, when he's quietly stalked off, out of UNIT's secret underground base, to be alone, to have a few moments without the mask on, she finds him, and he can tell from the look on her face that's she's not going to let him brush her off. He supposes he might as well get it over with. If talking to him helps in making her happy, then that's what he has to do.

They sit next to each other in silence for almost a minute, staring out over the Thames and the glittering cityscape reflected in its waters. Once he might have called it beautiful. Amy sighs, and he braces himself for what's about to come.

“We're thinking of stopping, Rory and I. Traveling, I mean.” It's not what he expected her to say, but he's relieved it isn't about him.

“Oh.” He tries to sound disappointed. Out of the corner of his eyes he can see Amy staring at him.

“You know, there was a time – there were years, when I couldn't live without you,” she says. “When just the whole every day life would drive me crazy.”

He closes his eyes. There was a time when he felt the same, and he wishes he could tell her that he still feels like that, because that is what the Doctor, _her_ Doctor would say, would feel.

“But since you dropped us back here, since you gave us this house... we built a life. And I don't know if we can have both. The real life and the _you_ life.”

He knows he should say something. Her Doctor wouldn't want her and Rory to stop traveling with him, her Doctor would cling onto them, even if he knew it was futile in the end. But that time feels so long ago now. A lifetime. A whole different life, even. And as much as he's trying to keep the mask on, he can't bring himself to lie to her like that.

So instead he just says, “Well, whatever makes you happy.”

A pause.

“But I don't know if I'm comfortable leaving you alone right now,” Amy says softly. His breath catches.

“I – what?” he stutters.

“Doctor, you had a complete mental breakdown when you came back from... what you did with River – and speaking of that, you still haven't explained what exactly happened.”

“Surely River told you –”

“River told us a few things, yeah, but I wanna hear it from you. Something awful happened, I can tell, something more than just River killing Kovarian. And I know you said you feel fine now, but you can't expect me to just accept that!”

“I _am_ fine.”

“ _Are_ you, though? Look at me – Doctor, look me in the eye and tell me you're fine,” she insists. Alright, he will. He'll look at her and lie and say he's fine because she _has_ to think he's fine, she has to believe everything will be okay. She has to be happy. If she's happy, then he can leave, and he'll never have to lie to her again, because he can't do it anymore, he can't keep coming back and pretend, he loves them too much to keep that up – and that's the thing, isn't it? He loves them still, despite everything. Loves them too much to lie. Loves them too much to tell them the truth: that the person _they_ love might not exist anymore. But that truth would make them unhappy, so he has to leave before they find out. He has to keep up the lie long enough until they don't need him anymore. It's not healthy, it's not right, but it's – it's the only option. The lesser of two evils. He turns his head to her, the words ' _I am fine'_ ready on his lips –

but then his mouth betrays him, _love_ twisting the words so it becomes something else entirely.

“I beat her up.”

Amy stares at him. Too shocked to say anything, so he fills the silence instead, words falling out his mouth involuntarily, like his soul is vomiting up all the bile and dark thoughts he had the last few weeks.

“Kovarian, I mean. She called River a whore so I beat her. That's why my hands were covered in blood. Because I'd been beating up Kovarian. I would've beaten her to death if River hadn't stopped me.”

The look on Amy's face is one of horror. He wonders if it's because of what he's saying or because of how calmly he's telling it. Perhaps it's the small smile on his face, the only real smile he's smiled in ages. Still, he doesn't stop. He can't stop now. She wanted the truth, so he'll tell her.

“You should have seen her face after I was done. It was pretty gruesome. I'd knocked out a lot of teeth, and broken most of the bones in her face. I haven't – it's been ages since I've done anything like that. I've killed, sure, but I didn't just want to kill her. I wanted her to _suffer_. And I wanted to do it myself. No weapons, no contraptions, no clever tricks. Just me, my bare hands and brute force. I don't even know where it came from. Time Lords aren't violent, you know, not in the way humans are. Oh, we can wage wars better than anyone, but you won't catch a Time Lord physically assaulting anyone. So I don't know why I did it. Maybe I've just spent too much time with humans.” He laughs, slightly out of breath. “I really wanted her dead. And I really, _really_ enjoyed hurting her.”

Neither of them says anything for about a minute, Amy clearly too horrified, the Doctor keeping his mouth shut because he's afraid he might throw up for real if he opens it. He feels better, in a way. Glad that it's out there, that there is at least one thing he won't have to lie about anymore. Finally, Amy speaks.

“If Rory hadn't stopped you...” she says slowly, “would you have hurt me?”

He hesitates for just a fraction of a second, but that's enough for Amy. She stares at him, disbelieving.

“No, no!” he says hastily. “Of course I wouldn't! Amy –” He reaches out for her, but she backs away from him in disgust. No. No, this is not what he wanted. This is exactly what he was afraid of.

“Amy, you _know_ me, you know I would never –”

“I thought I knew you,” Amy says, voice shaking. She stands up, clearly intent on putting as much space as possible between them. “Now – I don't – I don't know what to think.”

“Amy, please, it was just – I was in a bad place at the time, I wasn't thinking straight, but I would _never_ – I'm fine now, it's all fine!”

“It's _not fine_! You beat up Kovarian!”

“So what?” he says, letting out an incredulous laugh. “She _kidnapped_ you and _stole your daughter_! She brainwashed River! This was the _least_ she deserved.”

“Of course she – do you think I didn't _hate_ her? But this isn't who you are! The Doctor doesn't go around beating up people!”

_And how would you know_ , he wants to ask her. How would she know what the Doctor would or wouldn't do? He doesn't even know himself anymore, how could she know any better? He wants to tell her this, he wants to shout and sneer at her and tell her all the awful things he's ever done and watch little Amelia cry and lose all her faith in him because at least then he'd have an excuse to leave them, to never ever see them or any other human ever again, just cut all ties and fly away and get lost in the blackness of space where he belongs, but with River there, of course, because it always comes down to that, to her somehow, like she's the only thing that matters, has ever mattered, will ever matter. Maybe that would be the kinder thing to do.

But River would hate him if he hurt Amy.

Is that what it has come to? He only refrains from hurting his best friend because River wouldn't want it?

_maybe we did something right after all_

Amy's crying.

He doesn't know how to feel about that. Sad, probably. He feels numb instead.

_maybe_

“I'm sorry,” he whispers. “I'm sorry. You're right, of course you're right.” He reaches out for her, and this time she doesn't back away. She takes his hand and then she takes him in her arms, hugging him tightly.

“I'm sorry,” he says again.

“I just want you back. The real you.”

“I know, I'm... trying.” Not exactly a lie. He just isn't sure who the real him is. But he'll get there. Eventually. Possibly. After he's talked to River again.

_did do something ri_

They break apart, Amy wiping away her tears.

“We should go back inside,” Amy mumbles. She still can't look him in the eye.

_after all_

“Yeah.”

-

They find the culprit behind the boxes eventually. Or rather, he finds it, by himself. He thinks about calling Amy and Rory at first, especially since the entrance to the creature's hideout is in the hospital where Rory works, but then he realises that he's not sure if he can control himself, doesn't know which Doctor will come out when faced with whatever it is that's causing this. Best not to risk them seeing the wrong one. He quietly slips away through the portal, finding himself on a spaceship orbiting the planet. Finds a whole load of missing people too, whom he quickly brings back to the hospital before returning to the ship. He doesn't bother checking if they're okay, he's not really interested in them. He supposes the old Gallifreyan legend turning out to be true is fairly noteworthy, but he can't even bring himself to care about that too much either. So while the Shakri interface babbles on about eliminating the human plague, he finds the weak spot in the ship's system. A tweak in the code here and there, and he'll be able to trigger the self-destruction of every Shakri vessel. And with those gone, the cubes will cease to work, too. A bit crude, but simple.

As he steps back through the portal to the hospital and begins the self-destruction sequence, it occurs to him that there might have been a way to save the people affected by the cubes.

Oh well. Too late now.

He returns to the Ponds and Kate with a bright smile. As soon as she spots him, Kate rushes toward him.

“Doctor, the cubes –”

“Let me guess, they all suddenly died?”

They all look at him, confused.

“Yes,” Kate says. “How'd you – oh.” Understanding dawns on her face. “You stopped them?”

“Sure did,” he says, smiling. “Turns out there were a bunch of aliens trying to kill all the humans. They saw you as a plague, wanted to stop you from spreading all over the galaxy. Bit rude, if you ask me.”

“Wait, when did you find out about that?” Amy says.

“Just now,” he says. “There was a portal to one of their ships here in the hospital.”

“ _In the hospital_?” Rory exclaims. “Why the hell didn't you tell me?” Next to him, Amy crosses her arms.

“Yeah, you should've told us. Why would you go in there alone?”

“Well, I didn't _know_ it led to their spaceship. I just thought I'd scope it out myself first. But then I was there... I thought I might as well _do_ something.” When Amy and Rory's angry expressions don't change, he adds, mildly annoyed, “A bit of gratitude wouldn't be amiss, I just saved the human race, you know!”

“Lots of people died...” Kate says, frowning.

“Yes, of course, that's tragic and I absolutely wish I'd discovered that portal earlier, but... still, even _more_ people could have died. _Everyone_ would have died, that was rather the point. At least now it's over.”

“I guess...” Kate says slowly. She looks him straight in the eyes, like she's searching for something, and he can't help but turn away from her.

“Well,” he says, addressing Amy and Rory, “guess that's us done here, huh? I have to say, I'll be glad to get out of this hospital.”

“Says the Doctor,” Amy says, raising an eyebrow.

“It's the smell, I can only stand it for so long. Superior Time Lord senses, you know. Besides, it's just kind of a depressing place, isn't it?”

“I still work here, you know,” Rory mumbles. The Doctor ignores him.

“I say we go back to your home, see if the TARDIS has finally stopped being so stubborn. We could go somewhere nice! I think we all deserve a vacation, don't you think?”

“A vacation would be nice...” Amy says hesitantly. He beams at her.

“Exactly!” He turns to face Kate again, extending a hand. “Well, I guess this means goodbye then. Although I'm sure we'll meet again.”

“I'm sure.” She shakes his hand, but doesn't release it. Instead, she holds his gaze with a curious look. “You know, you're not quite what I expected, from father's stories.”

His smile falters just a bit. “Oh? How so?”

“I don't know. You're just... different.” She finally lets his hand go. “Goodbye, Doctor.”

“Goodbye, Kate.”

Somehow, he knows he'll never see her again.

And he knows that's probably for the best.

 


	8. o here my pining and curving queen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Hello,” he says, unable to keep the smile off his face.  
> “Hello,” she says, a bit uncertain. They both stand there, gaze fixed on each other. The ship hums softly, causing River to close her eyes, a small smile flickering across her features. She closes the door behind her, walks towards him, slowly, the uncertainty not just in her voice but in her step, in her careful, deliberate movements, like she's afraid she'll break something if she moves too fast. Finally she's close enough that he can count her eyelashes, the tiny freckles on her face, the small scars that litter her shoulders and arms – remnants of battles, fights, adventures – though not as many as she will one day have, and not yet as deep, although of course the deepest scars she has are not on her skin, but beneath, some of which – lots – he caused himself, scars he wishes he could erase. He's got a fair few of those, too. She opens her mouth, as if to speak, but then seems to change her mind. Hauls his mouth against hers, kissing him fiercely, and if her hands grip his head a bit too hard, if she uses a bit too much teeth with her kiss, he doesn't mind. She's real and she's here and she's touching him and that's all he needs to feel alive again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Only Revolutions by Mark Z. Danielewski.  
> Also, I've now officially caught up with myself and I've started school again, so if updates are slower from now on, you know why.

When they get back to Amy and Rory's place, he rushes to the TARDIS, ignoring the Ponds' protests that they should maybe take some rest before they go on adventuring. He approaches the doors of his time machine, gingerly placing a hand on the blue wood.

“C'mon old girl, I did my piece here. Now let me go see _her,_ ” he mumbles. He takes a deep breath and pushes.

The doors swing open.

He laughs. Suddenly the world is just so much brighter.

_Thank you. Thank you thank you thank you –_

“Doctor, come on, let's at least get a bite to eat first,” Amy says behind him. He turns around with a slight feeling of dread, knowing full well that she won't like what he's about to say.

“That's alright, you and Rory can do that. I'm just gonna – I'm gotta go somewhere on my own first,” he says, trying to sound as casual as possible. Amy eyes him with some suspicion.

“Why? Where?”

“Look, I – I have to talk to River. I need to make it right between us.”

Rory – who had been hanging back, clearly too tired to get involved – suddenly pipes up, “You can talk to her here. I can call her and –”

“ _NO_.” It comes out more angry than he intended. Both Amy and Rory stare at him, taken aback. “Sorry, but I need to talk to her privately.” He tries to keep his voice steady, but it's proving to be a lot harder than he thought.

“You can talk to her privately here,” Amy says.

“Amy, this is between River and me, okay? If we talk here, it'll... it'll become a family thing. I just don't think you and Rory should get involved.”

“She's our daughter –” Rory begins, but the Doctor cuts him off.

“And she's _my wife_.”

Both Ponds glare at him. He throws his hands up, exasperated.

“I'll come back! This isn't an excuse to run away. And even if it was, River would _make_ me come back.”

“Hm. That's true,” Amy says. “River told us you were alive even though you wanted us to think you were dead, she would probably have your have your head if you abandoned us now.” She narrows her eyes at him. “So you better come back or you'll have three angry Ponds out for your blood, Raggedy Man.”

“I promise.”

“And come back _quickly_.”

“I... I'll try.”

“ _Doctor._ ”

“Alright, well,” he says brightly, backing into the TARDIS, “I'll see you later, then.” And before Amy or Rory can protest, he slams the doors shut.

-

She's not inside the TARDIS anymore, he can tell. Must've used her vortex manipulator. Which means the most likely place for her to be is prison. His hands shake slightly when he puts in the coordinates for Stormcage. Nerves. Stress? Fatigue, maybe. Or a combination of those three. He doesn't bother specifying a date, trusting the TARDIS to get him where he needs to be. A _groanwheezethunk_ later, and they've arrived. He closes his eyes, doesn't move. Just preparing. It'll be fine. Everything will be fine. _Get your act together_.

The door opens behind him.

“Doctor?”

His breath catches. He spins around to see her standing in the doorway. Clad in prison garb – plain white tank top, plain black trousers, no shoes though – looking anything but plain, looking effortlessly gorgeous even though she's wearing no make up and her hair's unkempt and she's got dark circles underneath her eyes.

“Hello,” he says, unable to keep the smile off his face.

“Hello,” she says, a bit uncertain. They both stand there, gaze fixed on each other. The ship hums softly, causing River to close her eyes, a small smile flickering across her features. She closes the door behind her, walks towards him, slowly, the uncertainty not just in her voice but in her step, in her careful, deliberate movements, like she's afraid she'll break something if she moves too fast. Finally she's close enough that he can count her eyelashes, the tiny freckles on her face, the small scars that litter her shoulders and arms – remnants of battles, fights, adventures – though not as many as she will one day have, and not yet as deep, although of course the deepest scars she has are not on her skin, but beneath, some of which – lots – he caused himself, scars he wishes he could erase. He's got a fair few of those, too. She opens her mouth, as if to speak, but then seems to change her mind. Hauls his mouth against hers, kissing him fiercely, and if her hands grip his head a bit too hard, if she uses a bit too much teeth with her kiss, he doesn't mind. She's real and she's here and she's touching him and that's all he needs to feel alive again.

When they break apart, breathless, she doesn't look at him, eyes still closed while his hand strokes her cheek soothingly.

“I missed you,” he says.

“I missed you too,” she whispers.

“I'm sorry,” he says.

“Sorry for what?” she says, finally opening her eyes.

“Whatever I did to make you so upset.”

River sighs. “Right. That. It wasn't just – just you, it was... everything. It's – we need to talk. About a lot of things. But I guess we should – we should talk about what happened.”

He nods. “Of course. That's why I'm here.” He can tell she's having trouble finding the right words for what she's trying to say, so he doesn't speak, just lets her figure it out herself.

“I think she loved me.”

It's the second time in a few days that a Pond catches him completely off-guard.

“What? Who?” he asks, confused.

“Kovarian. I know, _I know_ ,” she says quickly when the Doctor opens his mouth to protest, “I know she was a horrible woman and I know she brainwashed me and made me an assassin, but... when we went to kill her, the things she said –“

“She was trying to manipulate you!” the Doctor exclaims.

“She was trying to manipulate _you_ , talking about how she thought I was worthless. But I think that when she talked to me, she was being sincere. She really did see me as her daughter.”

“She's not – you can't believe that nonsense – why are we even talking about this –”

“Please, Doctor, just hear me out,” River begs, and that shuts him up. This is about her, he reminds himself. Making it up to her. He can start by at least listening. Nodding, he gestures at the stairs. They might as well get comfortable. As comfortable as stairs get, anyway. They sit down, holding hands.

River takes a deep breath. “I never liked thinking about my childhood. It wasn't – it was never pleasant, sure, I won't pretend it was. Endless training, mental and physical, and only the Silence and Kovarian to keep me company. And that crazy guy from the orphanage, for a while, though he never talked to me much. I think he was afraid. Of me. Of her.

'I think at first, she _did_ see me as just a weapon, just a means to kill you. But... well, you don't spend that much time with someone without developing some sort of relationship. She'd be kinder to me, more gentle. One day she even started praising me for doing well in training. She had never praised me before. No one had. It was always 'you can do better, you _have_ to do better'. But now she was saying what a good girl I was, how strong I was becoming, how I was going to save everyone, and how proud she was of me. And when I sought out my parents, she _let_ me. Isn't that a sign that she cared, even a little bit? If I was only to be her tool, she would never have let me near Amy and Rory. Because Amy and Rory told me different stories about you. They told me fairytales, where Kovarian only told me horror stories. The fact that she allowed me to hear these things, allowed me to become friends with my parents, allowed me to be influenced by them... You heard her, she considered attachment to be a weakness. Yet it was her own attachment to me, her desire to see me _happy,_ that ultimately led to me sparing you. Do you think I would have brought you back to life if it hadn't been for Amy and Rory? I would have killed you and never looked back. But it was _their_ stories that made me reconsider. It was partly because of you too, of course. Your compassion, your love for River Song made me feel like maybe I didn't have to do it, that maybe I could be more than just a weapon. But without Amy and Rory's stories, I would've thought you were lying, that you were manipulating me. Because that is what Kovarian told me you would do.

'Before we went to kill her, I hated her for what she had done to me. I thought she was a cruel, heartless monster. I'm not saying she was a good person. Of course she wasn't. No one who kidnaps and brainwashes a child can ever be called good. But I think she truly believed that what she was doing was good. Not just for the universe, but for me. I think she genuinely thought she was making me into something perfect. And if she had to use force, if she had to go against my will, it was for my own good. I remember right before they put me in that suit in Lake Silencio, she came to me at the university. I'd just gotten my doctorate, and I remember the look on her face. She was proud. Proud that I was such a smart girl. And yet she still kidnapped me a second time, because _to her that was the right thing to do_.”

A heavy silence falls between them. He isn't sure how long she's been talking. Isn't sure when they'd stopped holding hands, either. When River had turned her gaze away from his, staring at the time rotor instead. Up and down. Down and up.

“I guess Kovarian was right, in a way,” River says softly. “Love is a weakness. Her love for me ruined her own plans. I think she knew that, knew that she had screwed up. Suppose that's why the Silence tried to kill her as well. She had failed them as much as I had. But you heard her. She still had hope. She still believed I could be what she wanted me to be.”

He puts a hand on her knee. “You're not.”

She finally turns to look at him again. “I'm not what Amy would want me to be, either. Guess I disappointed both my mothers.”

He wants to protest, say she hasn't disappointed Amy at all, but then he remembers what he had heard Amy say. How she thought River wasn't a murderer.

“Do you regret killing her?” he asks. River thinks for a moment.

“No,” she says. “I do still hate her. She deserved to die. And I'm glad it was me who killed her, not you or Amy or anyone else. It felt like she was mine to kill, you know?”

“You were crying, afterwards...”

River says nothing. It suddenly hits him that they've never really talked like this. About how they feel. Neither of them are very good about talking to the other about themselves. Which is ridiculous, they're married. He's known her for more than 200 years, and only now are they having a conversation about these things. Or River is, at least. He can tell it's hard for her, but that's okay, because he's going to be a good husband and let her take all the time she wants.

“I felt good about killing her,” River finally says. “And that made me feel bad. Amy's often told me about how horrible she felt for killing Kovarian, even if it was an alternate timeline. And she didn't even have – Kovarian had never been anything other than cruel to her. Yet she still felt bad. Whereas I – I had a relationship with Kovarian. A messed up one, but – it was something. She was still my mother, in a way. Reason told me I should've at least felt a bit bad, should have felt some emotional connection. I didn't. And I realised at that point that I would never be like Amy, I realised that Kovarian had a point, that even though I was married to you, I would always be a psychopath –”

Despite his promise to himself, he can't keep from interrupting her. “You’re not a psychopath, River. Psychopaths don’t feel emotions, and you clearly do.”

She rolls her eyes. “You know damn well what I mean. I'm an assassin. Worse, even, because assassins just do a job. I killed a woman purely because I wanted to. And she wasn't even the first one. I at least have _some_ sociopathic tendencies.”

“You said it yourself, Kovarian still deserved to die, whatever feelings she might have had towards you.”

“But normal people don't kill other people, Doctor! Or if they do, like Amy, they don't enjoy it. I'm not –“ She sighs, a tad exasperated. “I'm not like her. I'm not like your other companions. I wanted to, for a long time. I wanted to be one of the people that I'd read so much about. Brave and kind and smart and _real_. Not a weapon. Just a _person_.”

“And look at you now,” the Doctor says softly, taking her hand in his again. “Doctor River Song. You broke away from the Silence and made your own life. The people you killed, they were... they weren't innocents. You're not some crazy serial killer. And you're certainly not a weapon. ”

“Maybe not, but... I think about times when I've hurt people, when I've killed people, and I think about what Amy and Rory would do, would feel. And objectively, I _know_ it would make them sick. I just don't _feel_ it. I tried – for a while, I tried to do what I thought my parents would do. I tried being kind and caring like them, but it just felt suffocating, because I was lying to myself. I can wear the mask for a while, but I'll never _be_ it. I'll never be _good_.”

“You're good to me.”

She smiles a bit at that. “That's the other side of the problem, isn't it?”

He looks at her, confused, not understanding.

“The Doctor I've read about, that Amy told me about, he wouldn't call me good,” River says. ”When we tried hunting down the Silence, that first time… Every time I tortured someone, or _killed_ someone, I hoped you’d stop me. I thought that was what you were supposed to do, because you were a good man. I’d read about you, about all the people you saved and the evils you vanquished, and I thought… he’s not a monster, like they told me. So whenever I did something bad, I thought: this is it, this is when he realises that I’m not like his friends. I’m not like my parents. I thought I would look up and see disgust and disappointment in your face, and you would leave me. Or maybe you would scold me and try to make me a better person.”

“I wouldn’t – I don’t want to _make_ you into anything,” he says, his voice soft. “You’re River, my River, I wouldn’t – “

“Exactly. You didn’t. You just kept looking at me with that love-struck expression on your face. I’d be covered in blood and you’d look at me like I was the most beautiful thing in the universe.”

“You _are_ – “

She snatches her hand back. “You shouldn’t be thinking that! You shouldn’t – “ She huffs in frustration. “When you burnt that women’s mind, all I could think about was how the Silence was right. All those stories were right. You were a terrifying creature with no mercy that ought to be stopped. And yet you looked at me with so much love. I couldn’t – I couldn’t stand to look at you any longer.”

“That’s why you left.”

“Yes.”

“You hated me.”

“No. I fell in love with you.” She laughs softly. “Psychopath, remember? It was amazing that you accepted me as I am, it felt good, doing these things with you. Even though I wanted to be a better person, I was afraid that – that you would turn out to be just another Kovarian, trying to make me into someone I wasn't. But you weren't, and it was so _freeing_ and _terrifying_ at the same time. Freeing because for the first time in my life, I was allowed to make my own choices. Terrifying because I'd never known freedom like this. Terrifying, also, because I felt like this time, I was the one making someone into something they weren't.”

He stares at her. “I'm sorry, are you talking about _me_?”

She rolls her eyes. “Of course I'm talking about you. Look, you're _the Doctor_ . You're a healer. You save people. You're kind and compassionate and even if you're not always a good man, you _strive_ to be one. That's who the Doctor is, that's what my years of study have shown.” She looks at him, and there's something in her eyes he didn't expect – pity. “There's something else I realised though. No offence Doctor, but you're so _fragile_ . You need your companions to ground you otherwise you just break. You lose your... well, _humanity_ is the best word, I suppose. You become more like a Time Lord, cold and arrogant and uncaring. And you _know_ this is true. And you know that I can't give you what your companions can –“

“Oh come on, not this again!” the Doctor exclaims.

“Yes, this again! You _need_ to understand why I left you at Amy and Rory –“

“I _do_ understand, but – look, we've been over this –“ And his own words trigger a sudden realisation, causing him to snap his mouth shut. They _have_ been over this. River has told him this before, this 'I'm not good for you' rubbish. Ages ago. That was when she left him the first time.

“River,” he says slowly, “how long has it been for you? Since you dropped me off at Amy and Rory, I mean?”

River actually _blushes_ , guilty look on her face. “I – well – that's not important –“

“ _How long?_ ”

“It's – I mean –“ She bites her lip. “A couple of... years?”

He gapes at her. “ _Years_?”

“Look, I – I'm sorry, but I just – I didn't want to talk about what happened, so I sought out younger versions of you. I still wanted to be around you, just not this you. So I thought, I'll just go with him on one trip. And then one trip turned into two. And two trips turned into four and – well, you get the picture.”

He does. He understands how she must've felt, understood the appeal of running. He'd been doing that exact same thing his entire life, hadn't he? Hell, when she had been running away from an older him, he'd been running away from a younger her. So he couldn't blame her, not really, but – _years_. It still feels like a slap in the face.

“So that continued on for a few months. Probably would've gone on longer only you had to keep trying to get me to stay. And we had that fight. And I realised that I was the problem. That I had to give you up for your own sake.”

She's more like her mother than she realises, he thinks. Those Pond girls, sacrificing their own happiness for their husbands'. Of course, Rory didn't go mad when Amy left him.

“I spent a lot of time studying. Going on archaeological digs. Visited my parents often, that was nice. I could never stay with them too long though. Eventually the conversation would always turn to you. My own mind always turned to you, too. There were days where I hoped that it would go away, that the psychopath in me would take over and I would stop loving you. It never happened.”

She falls silent. They sit there for a while, the only sound being the morose hum of the ship. He feels... vulnerable. And small. Somehow River always makes him feel that way, and in a way he loves that, loves the fact that he doesn't have to be the strong one all the time around her. That he doesn't have to be the one carrying all the weight on his shoulders. That he can show all his weaknesses to her and still feel safe.

Except he hasn't shown her all his weaknesses, has he?

“It was two hundred years for me,” he says softly.

She looks at him, brow furrowed. “What?”

“When you left me, the younger me. I didn't see you for two hundred years. First time I saw you again was at Lake Silencio.”

She turns pale. “Oh god, Doctor, I – I didn't know. I thought – I knew that you would see me again, but I never knew –“

“But that was the plan, right? To leave me alone. That's what you were planning for this me, that's why you dropped me off at Amy and Rory's.”

“But I –“

“Well, I can tell you from experience: _it doesn't work_ ,” he says, angry now. “When Kovarian was talking about my 'episode'? That's what she meant. Those two hundred years. You think I'm fragile _now_?” He grabs her face, pulling her closer, maybe a bit too rough, but she _has to understand_ , she has to know what he is without her. She has to look him straight in the eye, see that he's not lying.“I am fragile _without you_. Those two hundred years were hell. You're right, I am a better man when I'm traveling with humans, but I'm not _whole_ when you're not with me. Life without you is empty and rotten, and I can't stand it.”

“That's not true,” River says. Tears are forming in her eyes. “That's not true, you've lived a thousand years before me, and you were fine. You loved and lost and lived on.You can live without me, I know –”

“Those years don't matter, don't you understand?” His voice breaks, his eyes getting watery as well. “ _You_ are all that matters to me now.”

She shakes her head, fisting her hands in his shirt, desperate. “Don't say that. Don't say –”

“Why not?” he insists. “It's the truth. _I love you_ , River.” She gasps at that, and he knows it's the first time she's heard him say that. He wishes he'd said it sooner. He should have. She deserves to hear it, over and over again, every day of the rest of her life. She chokes back a sob, relaxing her grip on his shirt, their faces so close now, pretty much breathing in each other's air.

“You shouldn't,” she whispers. “I'm not good for you.”

“Then why are you here?” he says.

A beat. She closes her eyes. “Because I'm a selfish woman. Because despite everything, despite knowing you would be better off without me... I want you. I told myself I only came here to explain to you why I left, to break this off, but...” She sighs, leaning away from him, turning her head away from his. “I shouldn't have come here.”

“You did the right thing.”

“No. I've only reminded myself what I missed. I've only reminded myself of what I could have. What I still want.”

“And why shouldn't you have it?” he says. He smiles. “You're River Song. You can take whatever you want.”

She laughs at that, slightly bitter. “What I want is not what's best for the universe.”

“Screw the universe,” he says. “What has the universe ever done for you? You were taken from your parents, you were never given a real childhood, you suffered abuse at the hands of that awful woman, you have a husband who is, frankly, a bit rubbish –” and she genuinely laughs at that, even if her laugh is a bit shaky “– the universe _owes_ you. So why shouldn't you just take what you want?”

“Sweetie, you only say that because it's what _you_ want –”

“ _No_.” She throws him a skeptical look. “Well. Yes, of course. But I also say that because there is nothing more important to me than your happiness.”

She shakes her head. “Sweetie, you've got so much more life left to live. You shouldn't ruin all of that just for me.”

“I –” He halts, not sure if he should be telling her this. He doesn't want her to worry, but he's trying to be completely honest with her, isn't he? She ought to know. “River, this is my last life. So no, I don't have that much more life left. But what I have, I want to spend with you.”

She frowns. “Your last? But this is your twelfth body, isn't it? You get thirteen. You've got one left.”

He shakes his head. “Nah. See, previous me, he... I had some issues. I might've... I got fatally wounded, but instead of regenerating fully, I siphoned the energy off into this spare hand I had – long story – so while I healed myself, I didn't change. Still counts as a regeneration, though. So this is the last one. I've got a tiny bit of regeneration left, but not enough for a whole new body.”

“Well, that was stupid and completely pointless,” River says. He laughs.

“Yeah. Like I said, I had some issues. But... well, what happened, happened. Can't do anything about it now. And – well – now we're on equal footing, at least. Guess you're stuck with this face,” he says.

“Could've been worse, I suppose.”

“Oi!” exclaims, feigning indignance. River giggles.

“Oh, calm down, you know I love this face.”

“Yeah, you do,” he says smugly. She swats his arm, laughing again.

“Stop it.”

“Never.” He bops her nose, causing her to crinkle her nose in that adorable way he loves so much. Like he loves everything about her. “If it makes you feel any better, I'll keep traveling with Amy and Rory. And we can have the nights, like before.”

“Rory and Amy won't travel with you forever.”

“I know,” he says, thinking back on that awful, awful conversation he had with Amy.

“So what will you do once they stop?”

He hesitates. He knows what he _should_ do, at that point. Find another human to travel with. Repeat the pattern. Days with the human, nights with River. It would work. It would keep him sane – no, not _sane_ , that implies that he's... Balanced. It would keep him balanced. That's the right word. Except, except...

Except that won't work anymore, will it? He's not going to pick up another human, he doesn't want to. Even if he did, it wouldn't be enough. No one's enough, not compared to River. She knows it, too, he can tell by the way she looks at him. That mix of pity and regret and love and a small spark of... what is that, pride? She knows he can't go back to who he was before her. She tried, leaving him behind like that, but he's shown her that it can't be. You can't turn back time. He doesn't want to, anyway.

“Look, the point I was trying to make is, I'm going to die at some point in the near future. Sure, if I'm careful, I could make it last quite a long time, but we don't exactly live very safe lives. Moreover, I'm...” He sighs. “I'm _old,_ River. And I'm just... so _tired_ of having to save everyone. Of being a good man. Of being the Doctor. I just want to retire and spend the last years of my life with the woman I love, doing whatever the hell we want without all those... responsibilities. After Amy and Rory, I'm done, you know? I'm just... done.”

A silence falls, heavy. River bites her lip, fumbles with the hem of her shirt, mulling things over.

“You wouldn't... feel this way, if it weren't for me,” she finally says.

“Maybe, maybe not. We can spend hours debating how things would've turned out, but what's the use? We made the choices we made, we feel the way we feel. The ifs and buts don't matter anymore. Let's just... stop talking about it. I'm not going to change my mind about this. About you,” he says.

“You want me to travel with you, after they're gone,” she says softly, not a question but a statement.

“Yes.”

“And you know that will be bad for you.”

He swallows the lump in his throat. “I think whether or not it would be bad for me is rather subjective.” She ignores that.

“Which in return will be bad for the rest of the universe.”

“Again, subjective.” She ignores that too.

“And you want me to just say 'screw it', and do whatever I want, regardless of the consequences.”

“You deserve it.”

She takes a deep breath, and then something in her expression changes, something dark slides over her features and transforms it, or maybe that's not the right word because it had always been there, but hidden, pushed away, and now it's as if a veil is lifted, revealing _something_ , subtly, hardly noticable but for the small smirk tugging at her lips, and again there's that strange sensation of something _changing_ in their timelines, a branch being cut off, withering and dying and a new one blooming from the remains, powerful and twisted, the sharp thorns scratching at his insides, ripping apart the flesh of reality, wounds opening and bleeding red red red all over, smothering everything like a noxious weed and –

No. There's nothing. He must've imagined it.

“Okay,” River says.

“Okay?” he says, a bit surprised.

“Okay. Screw the universe.” And she leans in for a kiss, softly, sweetly. He smiles against her mouth, kissing her back with just as much love. And just like that, he knows they're alright again. Knows that whatever happens, at least now they understand each other, _know_ each other, completely. They break apart, both beaming brightly. She takes his hands in hers and he's always marveled at how their hands fit together so perfectly, despite hers being so small. Like they were made for each other. Like maybe when he regenerated, he'd subconciously thought about her, about how her hands had felt in his when they ran together in that

_DON'T THINK ABOUT THAT_

heinous place. He thinks he must've made his own hands to fit hers. Thinks maybe he'd done everything for her. A fresh young face to love. The academic attire to match her title. Less emotional, less human, because that is what she had asked of him, hadn't she? That is what she needed him to be, so that is what he became. Bespoke. Perhaps Kovarian thought they'd made her to match him, but now he realises, now he knows – it's the other way around. He exists for her.

“Just, you know... travel with my parents, for as long as they want,” River says. “'Screw the universe' does not apply to them, got it?”

“Of course, of course,” he says quickly. “Whatever you want. We can go to them now, if you'd like...”

She shakes her head. “No, that's fine. We can do that later. And I think I need some time before I can... face them, anyway.”

“So,” he says, smiling at her, “what _do_ you want, then? What does River Song want, now that there's no limitations?”

“I think,” River says, voice dropping to that low, sexy purr that makes him weak in the knees, “that I want to spend some quality time with my husband. I think that bedroom of ours has been gathering dust for long enough.” She stands up, extending a hand to him in invitation. She smirks. “Shall we?”

“Always, dear.”

-

They spend a few weeks together, just running around time and space, doing whatever they like. He takes her on dates, treating her to lavish dinners and posh ballrooms and starry skies reflected in endless oceans. He tells her he'll give her all the jewelry in the world, so she chooses rings made of precious metals found only on the edges of space, necklaces worn by vengeful queens, and earrings laced only with the finest poisons (“You never know when it comes in handy,” she tells him when he raises an eyebrow at the poison bit, and it does in fact come in handy two days later, when she uses it to dispose of a mob boss who'd gotten quite irate when they'd stolen his car and subsequently wrecked it). In return, she finds him ancient lost cities and undiscovered moons and rare editions of his favourite books (never questioning why he steers her away from every library they come across). She helps him erase himself from every record in the universe, something he'd meant to do much earlier but never got around to. He has to admit that the anonimity it gives him is quite refreshing.

River seems much happier. He notices it in the little things: the twinkle in her eyes, the bounce in her step, the way her laughter seems much more genuine, much richer. It's like a weight has been lifted off her shoulder, allowing her to spread her wings and move freely through space. She's enjoying life without the pretense, without the mask.

When they return to Amy and Rory (three months too late, which isn't really that bad, especially since they managed to return on Christmas day), they're both feeling great, on top of the world, even. He thinks it must show, because the Ponds seem visibly relieved when they emerge from the TARDIS smiling and laughing. They'd agreed beforehand that they shouldn't tell them about what they had discussed (Kovarian, River, their pact to do whatever makes them happy, th _e timelines pulsing and converging and melting away, cannabalising itself and others and the stench of paradoxes slipping through the cracks_ ). They didn't need to know about all that. They just needed to know that they were happy. Rory and River prepare dinner, while Amy and the Doctor decorate the house and it almost feels normal, he can almost forget

_dinners ending in death and ballrooms ending in bloodbaths and burning ships reflected in endless oceans_

that it _isn't_ back to normal, that they're just putting on a play for the Ponds' sake, him acting out the part of the Doctor, and her acting out the part of the virtuous daughter. Such great actors they are, too, they almost convince themselves.

Amy and Rory take up traveling with him again, though never for more than a day at a time, and the spaces between those days are longer now. His nights with River, on the other hand, go from nights to weeks to months. He feels like it's all working out perfectly. Amy and Rory get what they want. He and River get what they want. Everybody happy.

And then he takes the Ponds to New York.

 


	9. the beast of war feeds only on the meats of war

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's supposed to be just a fun little trip. Just a fun trip to present-day New York. They were just going to walk around the city and do touristy stuff. It was all going well, too. They were having a picnic in Central Park, a normal, nice picnic. He was reading a book which he was fairly sure was about his wife, Amy was complaining about him reading the book aloud, and Rory was going to get them some coffee.  
> Really, he should know by now to never let Rory wander off alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I did say updates might take longer.  
> ALSO WE'RE GETTING NEAR THE END. Maybe one more chapter, maybe two, I'm not sure yet.  
> Also I'm sorry.
> 
> Chapter title from Only Revolutions by Mark Z. Danielewski. Some of the dialogue is from the Angels Take Manhattan, obvs. I had to rewatch it and it hurt a lot THANKS, ME

It's supposed to be just a fun little trip. Just a fun trip to present-day New York. They were just going to walk around the city and do touristy stuff. It was all going well, too. They were having a picnic in Central Park, a normal, nice picnic. He was reading a book which he was fairly sure was about his wife, Amy was complaining about him reading the book aloud, and Rory was going to get them some coffee.

Really, he should know by now to never let Rory wander off alone.

Weeping Angels. Has to be. Can't be anything else. Oh, but he is almost looking forward seeing those bastards again. He pushes those thoughts out of the way, though. Focus on Rory right now, and River, in the past, in the book. Thank god she's there, giving him the means necessary to get to New York, through the time distortions. When they land, Amy immediately runs off to find Rory, but the Doctor is more interested in the sight of his wife being held captive by an Angel. She doesn't seem too bothered by it though, so he grins, swaggering towards her.

“Sorry I'm late, honey. Traffic was hell.”

River smirks. “I noticed. You ran someone over, I believe.”

He frowns, looking down. There's a man lying on the ground, evidently having been hit by the TARDIS. He checks the pulse. “Dead,” he mumbles.

“Ah well,” River says, shrugging. “He was a prick anyway. Would you believe he's been collecting Weeping Angels? The fool.”

The Doctor strolls over to River, eyeing the Angel holding her wrist. “So it would seem. He managed to do some damage to this one, did he?”

“He weakened it, that's for sure. Enough that it can't send me back in time. Unless it just wants to hold hands.”

“What a romantic.” He trails a finger down River's arm, causing her to shiver slightly. “How's prison, Doctor Song?”

River laughs. “Oh, I got pardoned ages ago. Turns out the man I killed never even existed in the first place.”

“Well, suddenly I understand why you were so keen on helping me erase records of myself.”

“Sweetie, you know how dull prison gets. I served my time, I think I deserve my freedom. And it's professor Song now.”

He freezes. No. Not yet. No, it – it doesn't even have to mean anything. The... _that place_ is still far way. He'll make sure of it.

“Anyway,” River says, her voice dragging him back to reality, “I'd really prefer it if I got my hand back. So what's it going to be? Are you gonna break my wrist, or the Angel's?”

The Doctor closes his eyes. The book. Amy read this part. Damn her, if she hadn't – no, no it wasn't her fault, she didn't know. Behind him, he can hear Amy returning from her search. He glances at her, sees her staring at River's wrist in the Angel's grasp, sees the understanding dawn on her face.

River catches on quickly. “Oh, no, why'd you have to break mine?”

“Because Amy read it in a book,” he says, trying to keep the resentment out of his voice, “and now I have no choice. You see?” He says that last thing to Amy, who looks away, guilty.

“What book?” River asks, confused.

“ _Your_ book,” he says, holding it up. “Which you haven't written yet, so we can't read it.”

“I see,” she says. “So what?”

“So what? _So what_?” he sputters. “So, this book is about us, about what's happening now. We can't read it, because that would be looking into the future, and the foreknowledge could be dangerous. For example, _I have to break your wrist_.”

River rolls her eyes. “You're just going to break my wrist because a book tells you to? Now that doesn't sound like my Doctor at all.”

“That – it's not – _you wrote this book_!”

“Well, I apologise for my future self's terrible writing. Although I should be apologising to myself, I suppose. It's my wrist that's on the line. But really, my wrist isn't important.” She glances at Amy. “Have you found Rory yet?”

“No,” Amy says, looking anxious.

“Right. If I wrote that book, then I would leave hints. It can tell us where Rory is.”

“We can't read ahead –“ the Doctor starts, but River cuts him off.

“ _I know_ , but there must be something we can use.”

“Chapter titles!” Amy blurts out. The Doctor nods, flips to the chapter index. There it is, _The Roman In The Cellar_. Good, that's –

He hears River's breath catch ever so slightly. He's been standing right next to her all this time, and she can clearly read the chapter titles. He glances back at the book. What is she so –

Oh.

The next chapters are _Death at Winter Quay_ and _Amelia's Last Farewell_ , respectively.

No. This isn't happening. It can't happen.

“Well?” Amy says, impatient. The Doctor jerks his head back up. He can't tell her. She can't know.

“He's in the cellar,” he manages, in a surprisingly steady voice.

Amy breathes out a sigh of relief. “Okay, I'll go look for him there. You sort this out, yeah? And Doctor, try not to hurt my daughter.” And with that, she runs off to find Rory.

“At least that's her out of the way,” River mumbles when Amy's out of sight. “She can't hear what we're about to discuss.”

“Which is?” the Doctor says, mind still occupied with those damn chapter titles.

“You're going to change the future and get me out of here without breaking my wrist.”

“The book –“

“The book can sod off!” River shouts, causing the Doctor to back away slightly. He has never seen her lose her composure like this. “Since when do you let a book tell you what to do? I certainly won't. _No one_ tells me what to do. Not even my future self. You saw those titles. A death. And my mother saying farewell. Surely you can put two and two together.”

“Anyone could die –”

“But it's my _father_ who's in trouble right now. What reason could Amy have to say farewell?”

“They've been talking about stopping for ages – ”

Suddenly, River grabs him roughly by his coat with her free arm, yanking his face close to hers. “Use your brain, _sweetie,_ ” she hisses. “It doesn't say 'the Ponds' Last Farewell', it says ' _Amy's_ '. Why would only Amy say goodbye? Plus, _I_ wrote this book. If they just stop traveling, that wouldn't be a farewell for me. I can always visit them. No, this is something permanent. And even if I'm wrong, even if it doesn't mean what I think it does, do you really think I'm going to just take that chance? No. Nothing will harm my parents. We're changing the future.”

He sighs. She's right, of course. It's just a book. Time can be rewritten, and all that. It has to be rewritten, Amy and Rory need to be safe. And yet, and yet – they're treading on thin ice here. Time can be rewritten, but it's not always safe, especially not here, with the time distortions wrapping around the fabric of reality, turning the freeflowing river of time into a thick, syrupy sludge. Not so pliable anymore. It's not going to like change. It's going to resist, and even if they succeed – the damage it could do – New York could burn.

“So what?” River whispers, and he realises he's been talking out loud.

“New York for your parents?” he asks, already knowing what her answer will be.

“Any time.” And he knows she's serious, can see it in the vicious light burning in her eyes. _There are only three people in this world I care about_. She told the truth. Who's he to judge, anyway? Like he wouldn't destroy cities for her. Like he wouldn't go against all the rules of time for her. He would. He will. He promises himself. He won't let anything take her away.

He won't let the Library take her.

“Okay,” he says. “Okay. We'll get your wrist out first, and then – and then we save them.” He looks up at the Angel. They'll just need to break the hand somehow. That's all they need to do. The Angel's chained up, it won't be a danger to them. They can just break the hand and leave. Then again...

“We should kill it.” She says it so softly he isn't even sure if she really said it, or if it's his own mind whispering to him in her voice. There's not much of a difference these days.

“Yes,” he says slowly. “We should kill it.”

“But how?” River asks. “You can't kill a stone.”

“Oh, sure you can. Anything can be killed.” He steps closer to the Angel, inspecting it. It's been damaged already. He assumes they took a hammer to it. That won't kill it, even if it breaks into pieces. Given enough radiation to feed on, it'll just rebuild. Regrow. Living stone, such a pest. “Throwing it in a supernova or a black hole would work, but we can't use the TARDIS right now. We need to kill it here,” he muses. He racks his brain for a good method. It's almost _fun_ , in a way. If it weren't for the fact that they also still need to save the Ponds, he'd almost enjoy this. Killing this thing is a challenge, and he knows that'll make it all the more satisfying when he succeeds.

“There's no time, really. I should just get my wrist out.” River says.

“Acid maybe? I'm not sure that would kill it, actually. It would melt it, sure, but it might retain its consciousness.”

“Sweetie, we _really_ don't have time to watch a statue melt –” River reminds him, but he's only half listening.

“But if it's not truly dead, it could still come back...”

“What could come back?”

Both the Doctor and River jump. Amy's returned, without Rory. She looks at them both, suspicion in her eyes.

“Ah – nothing. It's not important,” the Doctor says hastily, moving away from the Angel and towards Amy. “Where's Rory?”

“The Angels took him,” Amy says, panic in her voice now. “They just – they took him again. What are we gonna do, keep chasing him back through time? How are we gonna save him, how will we get him back –” Her voice cracks, tears flowing down her cheeks. The Doctor rushes to her side, intending to give her a comforting hug, but she backs away. He feels a small sting of guilt at that. Guess he hadn't been pretending as well as he thought he had.

“Hey, hey,” he says softly, in his best reassuring tone, “it'll be okay. We'll find him, I promise.” But Amy just turns to River.

“River, what do we do?”

“There's a scanner in my coat pocket, the one lying over that chair.” She nods at one of the armchairs in the room, and there is indeed a green coat draped on top of it. “We can use it to track dad. I'd like to get free first, though. Amy, can you go to the TARDIS and get a hammer and chisel? I'm sure she will give you the right ones.” Amy nods, wipes her tears away, and dashes off into the TARDIS.

“What about our acid plan?” the Doctor asks, and he tries very hard to ignore the disappointment he feels.

“ _Your_ acid plan. Look, I want these things dead as much as you do, but in case you hadn't noticed, my _father_ is in danger. Like I said, we've no time.”

“Right.” He clears his throat. “Sorry, of course. Don't know what I was thinking.” He really doesn't know. His head feels odd. Full. It's the time distortions, probably, messing with his senses, with his head, _screeching, ripping, tearing, begging, time digging its heels in the ground, trying to resist with all its might the changes they're about to make_.

“Doctor?” River's voice floats towards him through the fog in his mind. He blinks rapidly a few times, trying to clear his head. It helps, a bit. “Doctor, are you alright?” And this time it's Amy's voice. He wonders when she'd come back, and why he hadn't noticed.

“I'm fine,” he mumbles, massaging his temples.

“You don't look fine,” River remarks.

“It's just... time. It's all... heavy.” He takes a deep breath, steadying himself. “Right. Have you got the hammer and chisel, Amy?”

“I think that's what this is,” Amy says, holding up two smooth, glimmering objects.

“Those are the right ones. They're 32nd century, made of the hardest material known to man – at the time, at least. Should do the trick.” He takes the tools from Amy's hands, moving over to River, who eyes him warily.

“Should you be doing this? I'd rather you didn't zone out again and chisel my hand off,” she says. He rolls his eyes.

“I told you, I'm fine. I'll be careful.”

River doesn't seem convinced. “Let Amy do it.”

“I'm _fine_ ,” he insists, even as he feels his hands start to shake. He can hear a sort of soft, persistent droning in his head. They need to get out of this place, this _wrong_ place.

“We could get out of this place faster if you let _me_ free River,” Amy says. He hadn't realised he'd spoken that last bit aloud. It's like his brain is short-circuiting under the strain of the muddled timelines, the hightened sensitivity of time making every choice, every cause-to-effect, feel like white-hot blades against his skin, against his mind, overpowering his other senses until he can't tell if he's hearing colours or smelling sound and his thoughts transform to speech involuntarily and it isn't until he tastes the metallic tang of blood in his mouth and he realises that he's been biting the insides of his cheeks, that his hysterical synapses seem to stop firing at random, slowing down until all his senses right themselves again and the world returns to its normal state.

He hands the tools to Amy. “You do it,” he manages to mutter, before slumping down in a chair, trying to catch his breath. He closes his eyes, just for a moment, just to get some peace, but even then he can see _time_ on the insides of his eyelids, twisting and stretching and coiling and smothering him. He feels a warm hand on his knee, and when he opens his eyes, River is somehow free already, kneeling in front of him, concerned.

“Sweetie, can you hear me? Are you alright?” she asks. He sits up straight, grabbing her hand almost in reflex, taking a deep, shuddering breath.

“Yeah. I mean, no, but – it's fine, it's just – the time distortions, they're really doing a number on me, don't know why...”

“When's the last time you slept?” River asks.

“Dunno. A while. I can't remember.” The truth is he hadn't gotten a proper night's sleep since he and River made their pact. He'd always had nightmares, but somehow they'd gotten more vicious, more graphic, more horrifying, and adding to that was that feeling of wrongness – much like the wrongness here, in New York, or the wrongness he felt in the timeline that never happened – scratching at his senses every time he closed his eyes, every time he let his mind drift ever so slightly. So he decided not to sleep at all.

River sighs. “That's what I thought. I know you think because you're a Time Lord you don't need much sleep, but you can't go without _any_ sleep, okay? Your mind needs rest, it needs to heal, to recharge every once in a while.”

“I _know –_ ”

“Well, _clearly_ you didn't, or you wouldn't be passing out right now. Yes, time is distorted here, I can feel it too, but the only reason it's affecting you so much is because your mind is already exhausted.”

“Well, I didn't _know_ this was gonna happen, did I?” he snaps, slightly angry now because for God's sake, it's not like he wanted this. “We were just having a picnic. This wasn't supposed to happen.”

“But it _did_ ,” River bites back. She leans in close, voice dropping to a whisper. “Innocent trips always end up going wrong with you, you know that. You can't just let your guard down, you need to be prepared _all the time_.” He makes to protest again, but she shushes him. “Look, I'm not... angry. I mean, I am, but it's because I'm concerned. We've already got my parents to worry about, I don't want you dying on me as well because you decided naps are for chumps.”

She's right. Of course she's right. She's always right. He can't ever let his guard down, he can't afford to take risks, not when Amy and Rory are with him. He needs to protect them, and now he's failing to do just that. He's rendered himself useless and, as always, other people will pay the price.

“I'm sorry,” he whispers. “You're right, I'm sorry.”

River sighs again, softly stroking his hand. “Forgiven. Always and completely.” She sits up a bit straigther, bringing up her hands to his temples. “Now, I can give you some relief by boosting your mind a little. It won't be perfect, but at the very least it'll stop you from passing out. Okay?” He nods. River closes her eyes and concentrates, and immediately he can feel a soothing feeling wash over him, dulling the pain of the time distortions. It's still there, but at least now he can think clearly again, concentrate again.

“How's that?” River asks.

“Good,” he says, smiling.

Behind them, Amy clears her throat. “Right, I don't really understand what just happened, but can we go find Rory now?”

“Absolutely,” River says, standing up and taking the Doctor's hand so she can drag him out of the chair. He still feels a bit wobbly. River moves over to her coat, taking her scanner out of one of the pockets. “I can use my vortex manipulator and scanner to track him. It might take a while though, depending on where in time and space he is.” She glances at the Angel. “I do hope it doesn't take too long. That Angel is not gonna be very happy about us breaking its wrist.”

“It can't hurt us, though, can it?” Amy says. “It's still chained up.”

“No, but it can still make some noise, attract other Angels. We don't wanna be locked up in here when the reinforcements arrive.”

“Right. Okay. Right. Maybe we should stay with the TARDIS,” Amy says, moving to do just that, before stopping and turning around. “Actually... Doctor, could we talk for a moment? While River looks for Rory...”

He hesitates. He can't say he's in a talking mood. Amy's scared, though, he can see it, and she probably needs some reassurance that everything's gonna be alright. She needs her Doctor. The least he can do for her now is be there for her. So he nods.

Amy motions for him to follow her into a different room, closing the door once they're inside. He's suddenly very worried. He's getting the feeling this isn't just about reassurance. She clearly doesn't want River to hear whatever she's going to say, and she's not one to keep things from her daughter. He watches silently as she paces around the room, wringing her hands anxiously. Suddenly, she stops in her tracks and lets out a deep sigh.

“It's her, isn't it?” she says softly. “It's River. She's why you've been acting weird. Why you've... changed.”

He freezes. “I don't – I don't know what you're talking about,” he says, trying to sound calm even as his hands begin to shake.

“Rory thought it began after Berlin, but it's been happening before that, hasn't it? I'm guessing it began after America? That's when you started going out at night with River.”

“I – we didn't – it wasn't –” he tries to protest, but Amy just talks over him.

“Me and Rory used to joke about your dates. I know you probably thought we didn't notice, because you went out while we were sleeping. We did notice, of course we did. You were always distracted during the day, you seemed less interested in adventure, you were definitely getting less sleep than you used to. Not as little as you do now, I guess, but still. We noticed. Do you remember one day, I came down early in the morning, and you were just sitting there, staring at nothing? I asked you what was wrong, and you didn't even hear me at first, so lost in thought were you. Back then I thought it was because you were in love. I even thought it was kind of cute. But it wasn't just that, was it? You had that same look on your face after you and River killed Kovarian, and she left you. It wasn't love. It was just empty. What did you do, that night? Did you kill someone?”

He tries to swallow, but his throat is suddenly as dry as a desert. “No. No, we didn't –”

Amy shakes her head. “Don't lie, Doctor. Please don't. If there's even the tiniest part of you that still cares in some way about me, then don't lie. You owe me that much.”

He closes his eyes. He doesn't want any of this. He doesn't want to have this conversation. Not now. Not ever.

“Doctor –”

“Why can't you just leave it alone?” he snaps, anger boiling up inside him. “Why do you have to ask all these questions? We were doing great, weren't we? What does it matter if I killed someone? Just today we were having a lovely picnic. We were all happy together! It could be like that all the time, forever. Why do you have to ruin it?”

“Because it's not real!” Amy says, tears forming in her eyes. “Do you really expect me to just sit back and pretend everything is okay while you and River get up to God knows what kind of fucked up things? I know River isn't perfect, and I know you aren't, but I won't let you become... become _monsters_.”

How dare she. How dare she imply that – it's not true, why can't she just see that everything is fine? That everything would be fine if she just stopped asking all these questions, if she just accepted that what they've got now is _good_.

“We're _happy_ ,” he growls. “Isn't that all that matters?”

“Have you looked at yourself in the mirror lately? Have you looked at River, _really_ looked? You're destroying each other.”

“No. No, we've never been happier. We've never felt better.”

“Really? Is that why you can't sleep?” Amy sneers.

“That's not – that's –” Suddenly, he laughs. Oh, it has all come crashing down now, hasn't it? The whole charade, collapsing in on itself. How did he even think this could work, how could he fool himself into thinking that. He laughs again, immediately followed by a cry of anguish when the timelines flare up again, piercing his brain and going down his throat, the sharp jagged edges ripping open the flesh on the inside until he's laughing again, coughing up blood, the red red red dripping down his neck and he loves that red he loves it because it reminds him of _her_ of her lips and her eyes and her mind and her hands around his throat squeezing the last remaining breath out of him and

he's on the floor again, coughing and wheezing, scratching at his neck. The red is gone, except not really because of course it was never there in the first place and something that never existed can't go anywhere and

He clutches his head, waiting for the world to stop spinning and the dark spots that swim in front of his eyes to go away. He tries to stand up, but his vision blackens again and he sways, leaning against a wall to steady himself. When he looks up, he sees Amy, staring at him, looking more scared than he's ever seen her.

“You really don't understand, do you?” he rasps, a giggle escaping his mouth. “Your tiny human brain just can't comprehend me and River's love, can't understand why we do the things we do, because it doesn't fit in with your narrow human view, so you label it as 'bad' and 'monstrous'.” He's taunting her now, and it hurts but it feels so good, so _right_ to see her shocked face, her wide eyes, the betrayal in them. “Poor little Amelia,” he says in a sing-song voice, “lashing out because maybe she didn't raise her daughter as well as thought she had. Because it _was_ her, you know. She made me this. Everything I do, I do for her. I have killed for her, and I would do it again. I would destroy worlds if she asked me to. Wouldn't even think twice.”

A silence falls. Amy still staring at him like he's some disgusting, pale _thing_ that's crawled out from under a rock. He certainly feels like he is. He should never have talked to her. He should've made up an excuse to avoid this entire situation. He shouldn't have said all these things. He shouldn't feel good about it.

Finally, Amy speaks.

“If you think,” she says slowly, voice shaking, “that I am ever, _ever_ traveling with you again after _this...”_

“I don't think that,” he mumbles. “You shouldn't.”

“After this, after Rory is safe, we are _done_.”

“Of course.”

“I don't – I don't ever want to see you again.”

He nods. It's for the best. It's all for the best. “For what it's worth... I still love you. You and Rory. I always will.”

“Don't lie. What's the point in lying? I know what you are now, you made it pretty clear.”

He shakes his head. “I'm not lying.”

“You're insane.”

 _Yeah,_ he wants to say, _yeah probably_ , but it's at that moment that River bursts into the room.

“I found him! He's not been displaced in time, just in space. It's not far from –” She stops when she sees the two of them. Amy, still teary-eyed and furious, and the Doctor, still leaning heavily against the wall. “What happened?”

“Nothing,” Amy says quickly, wiping her tears away. “Where is he?”

“Pretty close. There's a car up front, we could steal it, but –” Amy doesn't wait for River to finish her sentence, rushing past her out of the room, and presumably out of the house. River turns to the Doctor, confused and suspicious.

“What did you do?” she asks, not _what happened_ or _did something happen_ or _why is my mother crying_ because she knows it's his fault. It can only be his fault.

“Oh, you know,” he drawls, “just... ruined everything.” He tries to laugh, but it just causes another flash of pain. “Good news is, Amy hates me now, so she and Rory won't be traveling with me anymore.”

River stares at him. “How is that good news?”

“If they don't travel with me, I can't get them in any danger, can I? They're safer without me.”

River looks like she's about to slap him. Which he probably deserves. “And you thought _making her hate you_ was the right way to go?” She doesn't even sound angry, just disappointed. Somehow, that's worse.

“I didn't mean to,” he says. “I never – River, honestly, I didn't mean to hurt her. I mean – I did, but I – they would have found out eventually. What we do. What we _are_.”

She does slap him then, and the sting of it is almost a relief from the continuous droning in his head. “All I asked of you was to make them happy. That was it. And you can't even manage that,” she hisses.

“River –”

“No. You embarrass me.” And with that, she storms off, after Amy.

-

 

When he catches up with them, they're talking softly, River having slung one arm around Amy's shoulder. They break apart when he approaches. Amy doesn't even want to look at him, it seems, as she gets into the car without saying anything.

“C'mon, he's at a place called Winter Quay. It's only a couple of blocks from here,” River says, voice still a bit cold.

“River –” he starts, but she cuts him off.

“We'll talk later.”

“But –”

“ _Later_.” She gets into the car, and he does the same. What follows is a rather awkward trip, during which neither River nor Amy seems very keen on saying anything. He tries to make it less awkward, speculating on what the Angels could want with Rory, but River only gives short, curt answers, and Amy doesn't answer at all. The trip is mercifully short, though, and it seems that once they arrive at Winter Quay – which seems to be a kind of hotel – Amy's mind is already too occupied with saving Rory to waste time on despising the Doctor. The signal on River's scanner leads them to one of the upper floors, and there, wonder above wonders, is Rory, completely alive and seemingly unharmed. The Doctor sighs, relieved. If the book had been right – but they already changed it, didn't they? River didn't break her wrist. The book was wrong, and he would make sure it would continue to be wrong.

“We're not safe yet,” River says, nudging him. He looks around. There, at the end of the hallway, is a Weeping Angel. Smiling.

“Why is it smiling?” River asks. He doesn't know. Never seen any of them smile. Can't mean anything good, though. Evil monsters smiling is never good. He glances around, there has to be something –

His eyes fall on the nameplate on the door Amy and Rory went through. _R. Williams_.

“No,” he whispers, then, shouting, “NO. AMY, RORY, GET OUT OF THERE!” He rushes into the room, River following him, he needs to get them out, get them away from here, get them somewhere safe.

But it's too late.

They've already looked into the room.

They've already seen the withered old man lying in the bed. He's already stretched a hand out, calling for Amy. She's already at his side. She already understands. And now he's already dead.

“Could somebody _please_ tell me what's going on?” Rory says. Poor Rory, completely out of the loop. Already completely freaked out, and he doesn't even know everything yet. Doesn't know why Amy can't seem to look the Doctor in the eye.

“I'm sorry Rory,” the Doctor says, “but you just died. This place... I understand now. It's like a battery farm. The Angels take a human here, zap them back in time, feed off their leftover time energy. They'll trap you in here, Rory. They won't let you leave. They're already coming for you.”

“What does – what does that even mean?” Rory says, exasperated.

“It means exactly what you just saw happen. They'll send you back and you'll live out your life here, and then you'll die here.”

“But – but we can change it, yeah? We can just run.”

“Of course we can,” River says confidently. “It's perfect, really.”

They all stare at her.

“If Rory escapes now, it'll create a paradox. That's like poison to the Angels. Besides, they've made time incredibly unstable here, a paradox could make this entire place _unhappen_. Solves two problems in one: we save dad, and we destroy this place,” she explains. Oh, but she is _clever_. And so very dangerous. The Angels couldn't have picked a worse family to target.

“That could work,” he says slowly. “They'd still be after you, Rory. You'd have to keep running your entire life.”

“So what?” Amy says. The first words she's spoken to him since she saw his true face. “He'll be with me. And I won't ever let them hurt him.” Her eyes are fierce, confrontational, like she's daring him to oppose her.

“Okay,” he says. “Okay, let's do it. Let's change time. It worked with River's wrist, it can work now.”

“Exactly,” Amy says. “So I suggest we run.” She grabs Rory's hand, dragging her with him as she opens the door of the room. There's an Angel waiting outside, but they manage to rush past it. The Doctor and River aren't so lucky though, as the lights flicker and the Angels close in. He frantically aims the sonic at the lights, keeping them on from now, but he can tell that it's not going to last forever.

“We can't keep this up,” he says, “we can't keep them –” Suddenly, he is hit with another wave of blinding pain, and he doubles over with a yelp. River quickly drags him up again, letting him lean on him.

“It's okay, I got you, sweetie.”

He hisses as the time distortions coil around his weakened mind, suffocating him. He's had enough of this. Of all of it. “If these Angel bastards could stop bloody messing up time, that'd be VERY MUCH APPRECIATED!” he yells.

The lights stop flickering.

Everything is silent, just for a moment.

Suddenly, the most horrible screeching noise starts filling the room. He knows that noise all too well. They're laughing. At him. At his pain. At his failure to keep the Ponds safe. And then he hears something much more unsettling.

River's laughing too. Low, and soft. He stares at her, and for a second he's afraid she's snapped, that she's gone mad under the pressure. It's like the Angels feel the same, as their howling dies down, until all they hear is River's soft laugh. Then she pulls something out of her coat that he never in a million years expected.

It's a water pistol.

“What are you doing?” he gasps, bewildered. She smirks at him.

“You know I never go without a weapon,” she says, far too confident for someone who's holding a plastic toy.

“River – that's a water pistol.”

“No, honey. It's an _acid_ pistol. I suggest you step back.” She aims at the Angel in front of them, pulling the trigger once. A jet of clear liquid hits the Angel, and this must be the strongest acid in the world, because he's never seen stone melt that quickly. The Angel's flesh hisses and smokes, and yet it can't do anything, can't move because they're still looking at it, locking it in place. A different sound pierces their ears now, and this time he knows it's not laughter. It's screaming. It's suffering. It's beautiful.

River laughs once more, grabbing the Doctor's hand and pulling him with her. “Mind the gap,” she says cheerily, hopping over the smoking hole in the floor where the Angel once stood. They sprint down the hallway, to the stairs. He can see there's Angels downstairs, meaning Amy and Rory must've gone up.

“That was _brilliant_ ,” he pants as they rush up the stairs.

“Well, the acid was your idea,” River says.

“Yeah, but still – a _water pistol_. How did it not melt?”

“It's a very special water pistol. Now hush, darling, we still need to save my parents.”

“I love you.”

“I know,” she says, grinning.

They finally reach the top of the stairs. The door to the roof is already open, and they burst through it, just in time –

Just in time to see Amy and Rory throw themselves off the roof.

“NO!”

They both yell at the same time, River rushing towards the edge, but it's too late, they're too late. He failed.

“No,” River whispers as the world around them begins to shake. “No, the paradox – they'll live.” She smiles at him, taking his hand while time screeches and twists and cries out and it hurts so much he can't see straight, he can't see anything, he can only feel River wrapping her arms around him as the world tears itself apart and

 

-

 

They wake up in the TARDIS, River's arms still around him. The intense pain is gone. The TARDIS hums softly. He's almost afraid to open his eyes, almost afraid that this is just a dream and that if he wakes up he'll be back on that rooftop, with time slashing at his mind.

“Doctor,” River whispers, her face so close he can feel her hot breath on his neck. “Doctor, it's alright. They did it.”

He carefully opens his eyes, blinking at the light of his ship. His wife's face shifts into focus, her bright smile filling him with hope and warmth.

“Did it – did it really work?” he asks softly. She nods.

“Well, time seems in order again, at least.”

He looks around. They're alone in the TARDIS. Amy and Rory aren't with them.

“Are they – did they –?” He's afraid to finish the question.

“I don't know,” River says softly, smile fading. “Maybe they're outside...” She sounds unsure, but hopeful. He swallows, nods. They stand up together, walking towards the doors, pushing them open slowly. Bright sunlight hits them instantly, and the Doctor shields his eyes against the intensity of it. He can hear birds, and planes, and what he thinks is traffic in the distance. When his eyes adjust, he sees that they've landed in a graveyard. He barely has time to take in his surroundings when River yelps, running outside, into the arms of two people.

The Ponds.

They made it.

They're alive.

No thanks to him, of course, they saved themselves. Yet he can't help but smile as he watches River hug her parents tightly.

“You did it,” she says, through her tears of joy. Rory laughs.

“Of course we did. You know me, can't stay dead.”

“I could've lost you both.”

“Well, you didn't. We wouldn't just leave our daughter behind,” Amy says. She glances at the Doctor over River's shoulder. She hasn't forgotten what he said, he can tell from her expression, but he thinks she won't bring it up now, at least. Not right after they survived this ordeal. He clears his throat.

“So. How about we leave New York and never, ever come back?”

River turns around, grinning as she walks back to him. “Oh, absolutely. There's a great pub in Leadworth, let's all have a drink there.”

“I could definitely use a drink,” Rory says.

“Pub it is then!” the Doctor says. He still can't quite believe everything worked out well. He suddenly feels a small spark of hope that everything will work out with Amy and Rory too. He can explain why he said the things he said, he can make it right. He'll keep his promise to River. He'll make Amy and Rory happy. He's convinced he can do it. Right now, it seems anything is possible –

There's a sharp _crack_ and a dull thud as something hits the ground. He barely has time to turn around before there's a second _crack_. His mind doesn't even register what he's seeing, doesn't understand the sight of the two bodies and the statue until he hears the most inhuman, pained wail he's ever heard. A scream so drenched in anguish and horror, that initially he thinks it must be coming from something alien.

And then he realises it's River.

And then he finally sees the scene in front of him.

He sees Rory's body on the ground, head twisted at an impossible angle. He sees Amy, and for a second he thinks she's still alive because her body is still upright. But then he sees the stone hand around – no, _through_ her neck, grey claws sticking out of it, holding her body like some sort of twisted handpuppet. Her mouth is hanging slightly open, her eyes, empty, stare into nothingness. The sight is so horrifying that he feels bile rising up in his throat, and yet he can't take his eyes off it. And _yet_ , and yet that is not even the worst part.

The worst part is when it starts to _speak._

He knows Weeping Angels can do this, of course. It happened before. The first time Amy met River. Still so young. He was still so young too, so unaware of what the future would hold, what River would come to mean to him. That time he never saw how the Angel spoke, though. He'd _imagined_ it, in his nightmares, but those nightmares were nothing compared to this. Nothing could ever compare to the horror of hearing Amy Pond's voice coming out of her lifeless body. Her lips don't even move. It just speaks directly from the vocal cords.

“Justice.”

He's completely forgotten how to talk. His jaw has locked, and although he doesn't dare take his eyes off the Angel, he's sure that if he looked to River at his side, she'd be wearing the same expression of fear and disgust and pain.

Somehow, slowly, he manages to activate his speech again. “Why?” he breathes, and he's not even sure if the Angel can hear it, so weak is his voice. Yet it answers.

“You maimed one of us. You killed one of us. You created a paradox. This is justice.” It sounds like Amy and yet it doesn't, not in the slightest. It's cold and emotionless. This is a mockery. It has defiled her body and stolen her voice and it _dare_ speak of justice?

“Let her go,” River says. He's shocked at how calm her voice sounds. Or perhaps _she's_ in shock. “Let my mother go.”

“Or what?” the Angel says.

River laughs. Short, sharp. Cruel. “You saw what I did to your friend. You will suffer the same fate.”

“I am not scared of you,” it answers, cold monotone unwavering.

“You should be,” the Doctor growls, his anger fueled by River's. He reaches blindly for her hand, never taking his eyes of the hideous creature. Her hand finds his, and she grips him tightly. He can almost sense the rage boiling in her veins. “You should be very scared. If you had let them live, we wouldn't have come after you, but now...” He laughs, and he's very aware of how hideous his laugh sounds. “Now we're just gonna have to kill you all, don't we, dear?”

“We'll hunt you down. Every single one of you.”

“We'll hunt you down and grind you down into sand. We'll make a desert of you.”

“We won't rest until we've found the last Weeping Angel. And you'd better make sure you're not the last one. Because I'm going to _savour_ that last one,” River purrs.

“You wouldn't –” the Angels starts, but the Doctor cuts it off.

“Oh, we _will_. Trust me.” He slowly backs away, to the TARDIS, never taking his eyes off the stone monster. “We're leaving now, but we'll be back for the bodies.”

“I suggest you flee,” River says, backing away with him. “Unless you want the honour of being the first one we kill. We might even make it quick.” They walk backwards until they hit the TARDIS. He doesn't break eyecontact, not even when he reaches behind him to open the door. He wants it to see. To see what it has brought upon itself, upon its entire species. He wants it to see the eyes of the man who's going to wipe them all out. He keeps staring at it until they're inside, and River closes the door.

They stand there, hand in hand, silent, just staring at the door, for a full minute.

“Well then,” River says suddenly. “We're going to need some more acid.”

 

 


	10. here's how my anguish frees

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Let's go kill them. Let's go kill them all,” she says when they break apart. Of course he doesn't need to ask who 'they' are. They made a promise. It's high time they deliver on it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ALRIGHT sorry for the long wait, and you don't even get that long of a chapter in return. Lots of personal shit happening in my life slowed me down. But on the bright side, that means this is definitely not the last chapter. SO THERE'S THAT. Also your comments on the last chapter were hilarious and I totally get why GRRM kills off so many characters now.  
> ...I might be a bit of a sadist.  
> Chapter title from Only Revolutions by Mark Z. Danielewski.

The first thing they do is skip ahead one hour and pick up the bodies. The Angel is gone, either scared off by their threats or perhaps it has simply moved on to a new victim. It's raining softly, washing away the blood that seeped out of the wound in Amy's throat. Her eyes are still open. He kneels beside the body, not caring about his clothes getting muddy, just staring at her face.

“The first face this face saw,” he mumbles softly. He thinks back at the little girl he met then, little Amelia Pond, sitting in her garden, waiting for him. Twelve years. And then another two. And then the rest of her life.

“How old –” he starts, feeling disgusted with himself that he even has to ask that question, that he managed to lose track of his best friend that way.

“Thirty-six,” River says softly. She reaches over, closes Amy's eyes. He's grateful she does. He knows he'll have to move the body in just a moment, but for now he simply can't bring himself to touch her. Just the thought of it makes him want to throw up. Maybe it'd be better if she – they always say how peaceful dead people look, like they're sleeping, but Amy looks nothing like that, not even with her eyes closed. She just looks dead. He stands up, turns away, to where Rory's body lies. Rory, at least, looks peaceful, despite his head being at such an unnatural angle. Or maybe he's just imagining it, because Rory at least died without knowing what his daughter and son-in-law had become. Rory died in a world where everything was alright, where he and Amy saved New York and they were all gonna have a nice drink in a pub. Yet here he lies now. The Last Centurion, over 2,000 years old and still gone too soon.

He thinks he hears River muffle a sob, but when he looks back her face is a still mask. Not even a hint of tears. She's holding it all in, he knows. She won't allow herself to feel anything, not until the job is done. It should probably worry him how good she is at that, how well she hides the damage, even when staring at her parents' lifeless bodies. She shouldn't be the one keeping it together, she shouldn't have to be the strong one. Yet she's always been exactly that.

“River...”

“What do we tell Brian? And Amy's parents?” she asks. He hadn't even thought about that. He hadn't thought about what they were going to do with the bodies, period. He'd completely forgotten that the Ponds had family and friends of their own. What _could_ they tell them?

“We could –” His voice breaks, and he clears his throat. “They don't need to know they were killed. We could tell them... I don't know, that they were sent back in time? But we couldn't get them back because of... time distortions. Or something. They died, but they lived a full life. And they were happy.” That would be better than the truth, wouldn't it? Let them believe they were alright in the end. It's tragic, but it's not... horrifying. Like the truth is.

River stares at him. “You want to lie to them.”

“Wouldn't that be kinder?”

She's quiet for a moment. She's still sitting next to Amy, stroking her red hair softly. “No.”

“But –”

“ _No_.” Her voice is harsh, uncompromising. “We tell them the truth. We bring the bodies to Leadworth. They deserve a proper funeral, with their – with the people who loved them.”

He swallows. “Okay. They're your parents, it's your decision.”

“Yes, it is.” She's silent for another moment, seeming to gather her strength. Finally, she says, “Alright, let's get them inside.”

-

He hates touching the bodies. He hates every minute of it. Hates how cold their skin feels, hates the stiffness of their limbs, hates looking at those empty husks, hates the _smell_ , the stench of decay that should never have been associated with his Ponds. The TARDIS gives them a room to put them in, and he hates that room too, with its low temperature and regulated airflow and dead silence. The second they've laid the bodies down, he flees. Takes a shower under the pretense of wanting to get the mud off, though he can tell River knows he wants to cleanse himself of that hideous feeling that has been clinging to him since he touched their corpses. The water is scalding his skin, but it still doesn't feel hot enough. He wants it so hot it melts his skin off. That would be the only way he could ever feel clean again. His head starts pounding again and he starts yelling, not even words just pure rage and desperation and pain and he keeps on yelling until his voice is so hoarse it's nothing but a whisper and yet he still keeps screaming and his throat starts bleeding and the water colours red red red _except it doesn't it never does_ and he doesn't stop until he feels River's arms wrap around him, until he hears her voice whisper words of comfort and love and he doesn't deserve any of it, never deserved any of it, but he takes it anyway because he is a selfish man and a broken one and he would crumble to dust without her. She's all he has now, all he is and all he ever will be, he knows, he knows, he sees the timeline with its hideous deformities pulsing and throbbing every time he closes his eyes and even when his eyes are wide open, sees it twisting at the edge of his vision and he knows what it means.

He's starting to appreciate its beauty.

“I can't go to the funeral,” he whispers. She turned off the shower at some point, he can't remember when. “I can't do it.”

“That's okay.”

“No, it's not.”

“I can manage on my own.”

“You shouldn't have to.”

“I think it's probably better if you don't go.”

He blinks and she's gone again.

 

-

He goes with her when she tells Brian. It's a mistake. Rory's father asks him things like 'why' and 'how' and 'you said you'd protect them' and all he can do is mumble apologies while he stares at his knees. All he can do is stand outside the TARDIS while River takes Brian inside to see the bodies. All he can do is nod while River and Brian discuss funeral plans. He stays behind when they go to Amy's parents. And when it's time for the funeral a week later, he stays behind in the Ponds' house, flipping through photo albums and flipping through channels on their tv. He wanders through the halls and rooms, dragging his hands through the dust that's already settling everywhere. Wonders if River would cry at the funeral. Wonders if she would rather show her weaknesses to strangers than to him.

He feels a great desire to burn the place down.

River returns, looking pale and tired. She takes his hand and wordlessly leads him into the TARDIS.

“How was –” he starts, but she cuts him off with a kiss, long and deep, her nails digging into the back of his neck.

“Let's go kill them. Let's go kill them all,” she says when they break apart. Of course he doesn't need to ask who 'they' are. They made a promise. It's high time they deliver on it.

-

Killing Weeping Angels is much easier than he thought. They do the acid trick at first, luring the Angels into death traps using live bait. They're too greedy, the Angels, and word of the Doctor and River's quest for revenge hasn't gotten out yet, so they suspect nothing. He revels in the sound of them screaming as their bodies melt away, eagerly breathes in that burning smell they leave behind, filling his lungs with it as if he can use it to ban the stench of Amy and Rory's corpses out of his body, the stench that just keeps clinging to him no matter what he does to try and get rid of it.

Eventually the Angels start to catch on, stories start to circulate about the two Time Lords and their murder spree. They're forced to change tactics, something the Doctor is almost grateful for. It was starting to get dull. And River, oh, River is in her _element_. Her training pays off tremendously. The Doctor knows how and where to find the Angels, but River is an expert when it comes to killing them. Angel after Angel perishes by her hand, and she does it all with a smile on her face. It's a delight watching her do her thing. There's a certain beauty in it, in the graceful yet ruthless way she operates. It's not like when they tried to find Kovarian, when she was still young and in university, when her actions had been much more chaotic, quick outbursts of rage and hatred. This is controlled, every move deliberate, every attack meticulously planned out. Sometimes she strikes quickly, killing her target as fast as possible. Sometimes she draws it out, torturing one Angel for days and then letting it escape on purpose, giving it a small sliver of hope only to snatch it away right before its eyes. She always faces her enemies. She always lets them know who she is and why she is doing it. _Amy Pond and Rory Williams. Your kind killed them. These are your sins and you will suffer for them._ Over and over again she says, hisses, yells the words. He's not sure if she's even aware she's doing it after a while.

The feeling of wrongness is still there, gnawing at his mind, causing him headaches. He knows he should sleep, knows that would probably make it better, but he's finding it impossible, however hard he tries. Every time he closes his eyes he sees

_the hand sticking out of Amy's throat, bit and pieces of flesh dangling from it, vivid red blood dripping from the grey stone, she had such red hair and now it would stay red forever, now it would never turn grey and she'll never grow old she was supposed to grow old she was supposed to grow old and grey and live a long and happy life and_

that horrific scene play out. He lies next to River at night, wide awake, the darkness of their room almost suffocating and he's sure he'd scream if it weren't for her warm body next to him. Not that River's sleeping well. She tosses and turns a lot, and she talks, fragments of sentences that sound an awful lot like _it's my fault_ and _it's our fault_ and _it's his fault_ , and he holds her then, strokes her arms softly until she curls up against him and her mind goes quiet again. At least she _can_ sleep, even if her sleep is riddled with nightmares. At least she's getting rest.

She knows he's not sleeping, of course she knows. Well, anyone could see it. The evidence is plainly there. The dark circles under his eyes, the way he stumbles sometimes, over his words and over his limbs. It's not making his temper any better, either, his fuse so short now, the slightest thing setting him off. He feels like he needs that now, though, needs that rage to keep him going.

River doesn't agree.

“It's dangerous, sweetie,” she says one night, while they're lying in bed. “All it takes is one wrong step, and you're Angel fodder. And you're already making mistakes.”

“I'll be fine,” he mumbles, “I've got you, don't I?”

She sighs. “I won't always be able to save you. You can't expect me carry all the weight here. You're a liability, like this. You endanger us both.”

He shifts closer to her, drawing circles on her skin. Thinks back on earlier that day, when he'd nearly fainted from the splitting headache he had, and an Angel had nearly managed to get to him. River had been cornered by four Angels herself, and she had to pull some spectacular stunts to get them both to safety.

“You're right,” he says.

“I frequently am.”

“I just don't know... I don't know what to do.”

She turns to him, propping herself up on her elbow. “Have you thought about sleeping pills?”

He scoffs. “You know those things don't have an effect on me.”

“Strong enough ones will.” He glances at her. She's studying him, one finger slowly tracing his pulse. “Don't forget, I studied Time Lord biology intensively. I know of enough poisons that could knock you out cold.”

“Poisons? I thought we were talking about sleeping pills,” he says, eyebrows raised.

“Whatever gets the job done.” Her nail scratches at his skin, and he shivers slightly. There's something strangely cold about her stare.

“I don't know about this, River...”

Her hand stills. “Don't you trust me?”

“What? No, of course I do.”

She smirks

_she's going to kill you_

and suddenly she moves, lightning quick, positioning herself above him, hands on either side of his head, staring at him with that strange look he's seen before, like he's prey she's about to devour.

“Do you think I'm going to kill you?”

“No! For God's sake, River –”

“Does it turn you on?”

He gapes at her. “I – what?”

“Does it get you all hot and bothered, thinking of me killing you?”

He doesn't even have an answer, he just lies there, staring at her, suddenly quite aware of how heavy his breathing is, how warm he's suddenly feeling, how close she is – did she get closer? She wasn't this close just a second ago, her legs didn't press against his just a second ago, she wasn't straddling him just a second ago.

“I see the way you stare at me, when I kill, when I torture. You like it. You think it's sexy.” She laughs. “You sick, sick man.” One of her hands slides around his throat, and he actually stops breathing for a second, not because of anything she's doing, but – well, because of everything she's doing. She leans in closer, her face inches from his, her hair falling like a curtain around them.

“And you know what's even sicker?” She pauses, grinning.

“What?” he whispers, his voice barely audible.

“I like it too. I love it. I love how far you've fallen, all because of me. Because it _is_ me, I know it is, _you_ know it is. Amy knew it.” And here her voice wavers ever so slightly, and her grin disappears. “Amy told me she knew, in New York. She said I was bad for you, and you were bad for me. She said we would destroy each other. Did she tell you that too?” He nods, and she smiles again. “She said she understood how much I love you, and that she wasn't saying that I should leave you, but that we should do something about it at least. She was _begging_ me. And yet all I could think was that I like us like this. The way you've changed for me. The things you do for me.” Her grip on his throat tightens, and he can't even focus on her words anymore because her lips are right there and her whole body is pressed against his and he wants nothing more than to kiss her, to touch her, to feel her and yet his headache increases, sharp bursts of pain almost causing him to black out and he feels like he's suffocating, not because of her hand but because of the timeline, that damn timeline, that abomination encasing his entire body, trapping him like a coffin and that's exactly what it is, he knows, he knows, he's always known but there's no way back now, there's only one path he can see and it's her.

“Do you want that poison now?”

“Yes.”

-

The upside of poison-induced sleep is no nightmares. When he awakes, River is sitting next to him on the bed, reading a book and sipping from a cup of tea.

“How are you feeling?”

He sits up slowly, rubbing his eyes. He's still a bit woozy, but the headache has gone, and that's a massive improvement. “Better. Bit sore though, like I've been running marathons.”

“That'll be the poison.”

“Hilarious.”

“Right then.” River puts her book down and hops off the bed. “Back the Angels. Or Angel, I should say. We're down to the last one.”

“Really?” he says, amazed. “Didn't think we'd get to the last one so soon. It has been, what, a couple of months?”

“We've been very efficient. Plus, there just aren't that many. They're not humans, they don't need to breed that much, on account of them being so hard to kill.” She smirks. “Well, if you're an amateur, that is.”

“You're sure it's the last one?”

“I had the TARDIS do a full scan. Only one comes up.”

“A full scan? That takes days.”

“Well,” River says, avoiding his gaze, “you were... out for a while.”

“A while?”

“A week.”

“ _A week?_ ”

“I must've gotten the dose wrong. You were never in any danger, honestly.” She puts her empty teacup away, starts rummaging through her drawers, pulling out a bunch of weapons. “Now get dressed, sweetie. We have a long day ahead of us.”

-

The day turns into a month. Not because the Angel is so hard to kill, quite the opposite. Capturing it is a breeze. The Angel's clearly on its last legs, exhausted from running and hiding. It knows it's doomed, it has heard the tales and seen what they did with its kind, but it foolishly thought it could keep itself hidden by not taking any victims, posing as an innocent statue for years, or even decades, who knows. And while that did make it harder to find, it also means that it's starving. It's gone too long without feasting, and it's made it weak. They lock it in chains that a stronger Angel would have no problem breaking free from, but it simply has no strenght left.

And then the fun begins.

River said she'd savour the last one, and she makes good on that promise. She subjects it to all of the methods of torture she'd mastered while hunting. Breaking off parts, melting holes into its arms, destroying it almost completely, but always holding back enough to let it live. It screams, it calls out for others to come and save it, but River gleefully informs it of its status as last of the Weeping Angels. And she keeps torturing it. Thirty solid days, with hardly any pause for rest. He thinks of trying to get her to sleep, at least for a few hours, but there's a frenzied light in her eyes that makes him back away. She needs this. She needs to pour all of her anger and grief and guilt into torturing this being. So instead of telling her to stop, he joins in.

They trapped the Angel in a dilapitated building in a ghost town, on a hot desert planet. During the day, the planet's twin suns scorch the earth, the crumbling roof of the building only giving them patches of shade. The air is humid, and both River and the Doctor are drenched in sweat. It's starting to make the torturing a rather tiring and unpleasant affair. Another ten days have passed, and River still refuses to let the creature die. She looks manic, possessed, almost. He thought this would make her feel good, because it did, before, but it's like now that they've come to the last one, something has changed. She's drawing it out for as long as she can, and it's not just because she wants the Angel to suffer. It's something else.

“River, c'mon,” he mumbles, sitting down on the ground and wiping the beads of sweat off his forehead, “I doubt it can really feel anything at this point anyway.”

“It needs to pay for what it did,” River hisses. She's pacing in front of it, trying to come up with a new way of causing it pain. They've pretty much done everything they could think of at this point.

“It _did_ pay for what it did. They all did. Let's just kill this last one and rid the world of Weeping Angels forever.”

“It's not enough, it's _never_ enough.”

“River, please –” He stands up, grabbing her hand. “We got our revenge. This isn't healthy anymore.”

River laughs at that. “None of this was ever _healthy_ , darling. I'm pretty sure 'committing genocide' doesn't fall under the five stages of grief, I do hope you realise that.”

He sighs. “Okay, fair enough, but – you can't do this forever. It's got to die sometime.” She doesn't answer, doesn't look at him. She's hiding, like she always does. He moves in closer, sliding a hand under her jaw. “What's wrong, eh? You can tell me.”

“My parents were killed, that's what's wrong,” she says, voice bitter. “I mean, what do you want me to tell you? That every day without them is torture? That I get nightmares about the last moments of their lives? That no matter how much the Angels suffer, it will never be enough, because it won't bring them back? Is that what you want to hear?”

“But that's not all, is it? There's something else.”

She bites her lip, one hand coming up to grip his shirt. For a moment the rage burns hotly in her eyes, so ferocious that he thinks she might explode – and then it's like all her barriers, all her walls, fall down all at once, and suddenly tears are streaming down her face, washing away the dirt that's gathered there.

“I don't – I don't want it to end. I don't want us to end. And I feel like it might, soon.”

He shakes his head, confused. “Why would it end?”

“I'm not blind, Doctor,” she sighs. “I'm still part Time Lord. I can't see timelines as clearly as you do, but I don't need to, do I? Not with a timeline that's this fucked up. It's practically screaming at me. 'Look at me, I'm wrong! And it's all your husband's fault.' Because it is, isn't it? You did this to time. You've changed something.”

“I don't –” he starts to protest, but she cuts him off.

“We're practically in synch now, and yet I've never met a version of you who doesn't know me. I've never had that first meeting with you. And I'm supposed to, aren't I? It has to happen soon. But you're keeping me away from it, and I can only assume it's because something bad happened to me.”

It's his turn to look away. Well, of course she was going to work it out at some point. He should have known.

“Did I die?”

He swallows the lump in his throat. Takes a deep breath.

“Yes.”

“Oh, _sweetie..._ ” She pulls him in for a hug. He buries his face in her hair, smelling the dirt and sweat and that unique scent that reminds him of thunderstorms and time and something metallic he can't quite place. “I'm sorry.”

“Sorry for what?” he says, attempting a laugh. “You're the one who died.”

“But you've had to carry that knowledge with you all this time. It must've been torture.”

He lifts his head, looking deep into her eyes. “It was. But it isn't anymore. You know why?”

“Why?” she breathes.

“Because you're not going to die. I won't let it happen.”

“It has to, the timeline –”

“The timeline can go _fuck off_.”

She stares at him, taken aback by his sudden harsh tone.

“I'm not just going to sit back and let you walk off to your death,” he says.

“Sweetie, you can't –” But she stops mid-sentence. Turns her head, like she's listening for something. “Did you hear –”

Suddenly, the door of the building they're in is slammed open, nearly ripped out of its hinges. A dozen soldiers run in, shouting at them to get down on the ground, and now there's soldiers on the roof too, dropping in through the holes, surrounding them. River pulls out her gun, ready to defend herself, but there's simply too many. One of them points a strange metal glove at her, and her gun is ripped out of her hands by some unseen force. Before they know it, the soldiers are on top of them. The Doctor has barely time to shout and then he's face-down on the floor, his arms being roughly pulled behind his back, his hands cuffed. He tries to look to his right, to River, but one of the soldiers pushes his head down into the sand. He can hear her shouting and cursing though, putting up a fight. But it's no use. He's pulled up by his armpits, two soldiers dragging him outside, where a large spaceship is waiting.

“Get _off_ of me, you bastards!” River yells. He looks behind him. It's taking four soldiers to drag River along. One of them has a black eye and another a broken nose, he notices. At least she's not going quietly. “Let me go or I swear _I'll kill you all!_ ” she shouts as they're being shoved inside the ship. The soldiers don't answer, instead pushing them into chairs, where they remove their handcuffs only to replace them with restraints on the chairs, around their wrists, ankles and head, making it impossible to move. It's only then that the Doctor notices the symbol on the uniforms. The symbol that is all over the ship. The Church.

“You can't put me back in prison,” River hisses, as the ship starts to take off. “I'll just escape anyway.”

“You're not going to prison, ma'am,” one of the soldiers answers. “You've been summoned.”

“Summoned? By who?” the Doctor asks, bewildered.

“The head of the Church, sir. The Mother Superious of the Papal Mainframe herself. Tasha Lem.”

 


	11. no sweeter innocence than our gentle sin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “There is a rot in time.”  
> He shoots up at the sudden sound. Tasha is standing a few feet from the altar-bed, observing him calmly.  
> “And I think we both know what has caused this rot.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're almost there, kids.  
> Some dialogue taken from Time of the Doctor. Chapter title from Take Me To Church by Hozier. GET IT. CHURCH.

Tasha. He knows her, or he did, a long time ago. As the Doctor and River are led through the dark halls of the Mainframe, he thinks back on when he met Tasha. They had a bit of a fling. Nothing special, no grand love or anything, just a bit of fooling around, a bit of fun. She was a wild one – alright, that was an understatement: she was a psychopath. A crazed madwoman, power-hungry and vicious and very charming when she needed to be. Charmed him, although he saw right through her. If she knew he wasn't falling for her charade, she didn't tell him. Didn't matter anyway. It didn't matter that she was the bad guy and he was the good guy and they were supposed to battle each other instead of bedding each other. Sometimes you have to take a break from that. It was just fun, for that brief amount of time they were together.

That was before the Church, though. He has no idea what she'll be like now. Different, probably. This Church didn't seem like the one to have a psychopath as their leader. The same Church that bred Father Octavian wouldn't let someone like the Tasha he knew lead them. And the Tasha he knew wouldn't linger on this station, this dark place floating in the void, filled with soldiers and holy men and holy women and unholy creatures. The Tasha he knew wouldn't let herself get trapped here, she'd rather burn it down, destroy it, destroy everyone inside it, and move on to her next target.

Or perhaps those are River's words, River's desires, slipping out of her mouth and into his subconcious.

Perhaps she isn't even speaking anymore.

Perhaps she's just burrowed into his mind, made her nest there, digging her nails into the dark cavities inside his head, those empty spaces he was sure

he was sure  
there was something there and now there's less  
she's taking up more and more space

And now they're still walking through the halls, and maybe they have been walking there for years or maybe it was only a minute but it's dark and cold and he hates it. Those beings are here, too, the ones he's been calling Silents or Silence or silence or nothing at all because they're not there, not when you look away, but he can feel them, their timelines small and thin and meaningless. They're dressed as priests, for some reason. He still wants to kill them. Forgive me, Father Octavian, for I have sinned.

Quite a lot of times.

They're brought before Tasha, who looks just as he remembered (if he remembered, and he's not sure he does), beautiful and powerful, but there's a calmness in her eyes now, the fire burning cold, calculated, her wildness tamed or perhaps just contained. Her gaze falls on River, who's eyeing her with suspicion, and something flickers across her features – recognition and disgust and intrigue, perhaps. But then she looks back at the Doctor and smiles, teeth glittering.

“Hey babes.” Like nothing's changed. Like the last time they saw each other wasn't lifetimes ago. He smirks.

“Loving the frock,” he says. He can do empty banter as well as her.

“Is that a new body?” she asks, eyes raking over his body in a way he's very familiar with. “Give us a twirl.”

He obliges, spinning around, letting her have a good look. “Tash, this old thing? Please, I've been rocking it for centuries.”

“Nice, though. Tight.”

“You're not so bad yourself,” River pipes up, voice honey-sweet. “If I may be so frank, _Mother Superious_.” And there's the sting. “But then you are being quite frank with my husband. I take it you know each other?” It's not jealousy that drives this question, he knows, though it might seem so on the outside. But River knows she has no reason to be jealous. River knows his hearts are hers. Still, there's hint of animosity in her voice when she speaks to Tasha. He suspects has everything to do with the fact that she's with the Church, and nothing to do with his and Tasha's relationship.

“We... spent some time together. Ages ago,” the Doctor says.

“I can see why you would,” River says, throwing Tasha a sultry look. Well, River was never above flirting with the enemy.

Tasha seems unimpressed. Uncomfortable, even. Perhaps she's changed more than he thought. “You must be River Song.”

“Yes, I am. And if I may offer some friendly feedback, I spent quite a lot of time in your prison and I have to say, you ought to train your guards better.”

Tasha doesn't react, merely stares at River for a few seconds before turning to one of her clerics. “I want to talk to her in private first. Take the Doctor to my chapel, he can wait there.”

“Anything you want to say to me, you can say in front of the Doctor,” River sneers.

“And vice versa,” the Doctor adds.

“No,” Tasha says, “I don't think I can. I don't think you'd want me to. Come with me, River Song. I want to discuss the woman who raised you.”

River freezes. “Kovarian?” she whispers.

“Yes. Now, come along.” And with that, Tasha starts walking away. River hesitates, looking from Tasha to the Doctor.

“River,” he hisses, “I don't think it's a good idea to seperate –” But she runs off, after Tasha, and next thing he knows he's being led to a chapel by a couple of soldiers. He yells River's name, but it's no use. They reach Tasha's chapel, throw him inside. It is nice, he has to give it to her. It screams luxury and decadence. She'd always liked her comforts. He looks for a way to escape, to get back to River, but there's guards at the doors and outside the walls is only endless space. There's a teleporter, but he can't activate it. They took his sonic screwdriver

no  
he wasn't carrying his sonic screwdriver  
he was carrying a knife

He sits down on what looks like a cross between an altar and a bed, wondering what Tasha would want with River, why she'd summoned them here. Perhaps she wanted to apologise? After all, Kovarian had been with the Church, hadn't she? Certainly, they both used those Silents, or whatever the creatures were called. And the prison had been led by the Church as well, but was Kovarian involved in that? Was Tasha? If she was, he'd have to kill her. If she was in any way complicit in kidnapping River, she would have to die. It was all quite simple: people who hurt River don't get to live. Rule one.

He closes his eyes, for a second or maybe hours, it's hard to tell the difference these days. Either way, it's not like he can sleep. And he doesn't want to sleep, he wants River. If he concentrates, he can feel the soft humming of her mind in the distance. They're so tightly connected now. When they're close to each other, it's almost like their minds melt together. It's nice. It's a good feeling. Reminds him of home. It's good not being alone anymore, good to have someone like him, someone he can share his mind with without fear of harming them. He doesn't ever want to lose that.

He doesn't want to lose her.

He can't. He can't live without her. The mere thought of it terrifies him. If she ever died

 _but she has, remember? remember books and shadows and a moon and corpses and her lifeless body remember the way it burned the smell of cooked flesh the smoke coming from her body do you remember? do you remember the sadness in her eyes and her tears do you remember that River Song, the one who died  
_ _it's not her_

he'd be nothing. There would be nothing left of him. There isn't a part of him that isn't _her_ , not anymore. If she died, he would die.

“There is a rot in time.”

He shoots up at the sudden sound. Tasha is standing a few feet from the altar-bed, observing him calmly.

“And I think we both know what has caused this rot,” she continues, walking towards him now.

“What are you talking about?” he says, a bit breathless.

“Oh, don't act like you don't know. You must feel it, the corruption. Time has been changed, and not for the better.”

She knows, he realises. She knows what he's done. That's why she called him here. He slowly gets up from the bed, keeping a careful eye on her. She's moving in on him, like a vulture moving in on its prey. What's her plan? Is she going to kill him? Or him and River both?

“Where's River?” he asks. “What did you do to her?”

Tasha smiles. “Oh, don't worry about her, she's fine. We just had a chat.” She's very close now, almost uncomfortably so.

“A chat? About what?”

“She was modeled after me, you know.”

He stares at her for a moment. “What?”

“River. She was modeled after me. Surely you've noticed the similarities. It was interesting to finally meet her.”

“Kovarian modeled River after _you_?” he says, stunned. “Why?”

“She was always a bit sentimental,” Tasha sighs. “Or just mental, depending on how you want to view it. Suppose that's why I fell for her.”

He gapes at her. “You... and Kovarian... were...”

“Married, yes.”

“You knew about... about what she did. To River.” If she knew, if she was willingly working with that... with _her_... she would definitely have to die.

Tasha sighs again, and moves away from him to a cabinet on the wall. “Hm, yes and no. I knew about her plan, but I certainly didn't approve of it. I was _very_ against it, in fact. That's why her faction broke off. She wasn't officially part of the Church anymore.” She pulls out two glasses and a bottle of what he assumes is some kind of wine. “Drink?” He shakes his head. She shrugs, pours herself one. “She tried to convince me to help her. I wasn't about to be complicit in kidnapping and brainwashing a child, though. I told her so. We had a big fight about it, and she stormed off, taking a bunch of priests with her.”

“Priests? You mean the creatures, the Silence?”

“They're not called the Silence, that's what the Church was called. Is called. Would have been called, if it weren't for you. Anyway,” she takes a sip of the wine, “off she went, didn't hear from her until years later. I didn't think she'd be able to pull it off you know, but then one day I got a letter, and a photo. A young child. 'Our daughter', she'd captioned it.”

“She wasn't _your daughter,_ ” the Doctor growls. “She was an innocent child stolen from her real parents.”

Tasha rolls her eyes. “ _I know_ , good lord, I'm not delusional. I never even wanted kids. Can you imagine me with a child? It would be a disaster.” She wanders back over to him, sitting on the bed. “Guess she got a bit too attached to River. She kept sending me letters, talking about how beautiful River was and how much like me she was and how she was going to save us all, just you wait.” She takes another gulp of the wine. “Guess she both succeeded and failed. Funny how that goes.”

“She's dead now. River killed her.”

“I know, she told me. I had a hunch that she was dead, anyway.” Her voice wavers a bit. He almost thinks she's going to cry, but then she takes a deep breath and composes herself. “I just wish I could've given her a proper burial.”

“She deserved everything that happened to her,” the Doctor says coolly. How Tasha could ever have loved Kovarian, he doesn't know. Crazy attracts crazy, probably. He doesn't feel sorry for her, won't feel sorry for her.

“Perhaps. But who are you to decide that?”

“I'm the husband of the woman she tried to use as a weapon.”

Tasha laughs. “How sweet. You two are really quite something. I'm flattered, to be honest.”

“Flattered?”

“Well, to see you so infatuated with a woman who was specifically made to resemble me...”

It's his time to laugh. He sits down next to her, leaning in so close that his lips almost brush against her ear. “You are _nothing_ compared to her. Kovarian might have tried to make her in your image, but she is _so much more_. She is a goddess, and you're just an ant.”

She turns to him, unfazed, smirking. “I'll gladly be an ant, then. You remember your last words when we parted ways, all those years back? You said I could be more than what I was. That I could fight the psychopath inside me and become something better. I took your advice, you know. And here I am now.”

“Yes, here you are, head of the most horrible church in existence, and widow to the most horrible woman in existence. Well done,” he sneers.

“Thanks, I'm quite pleased with it,” she says. “I guess you haven't been following your own advice, though. You and little Melody Pond, you've been embracing that psychopath with open arms. And it's causing quite a bit of trouble.” She brings up her hand to tuck a stray strand of hair behind his ear. “Tell me, have you ever met a girl named Clara Oswald?”

He leans back a bit, confused by the sudden shift in topics. “Sorry?”

“Clara Oswald? Small, human girl? Twenty-first century, dark hair, cute face...”

“Can't say I have...” he says slowly, unsure of where this is going.

“Hm, guess the change happened even before that. That is quite a problem. I was hoping maybe you'd at least met her. I guess you didn't save Gallifrey either, then.”

He backs away from her. _Save Gallifrey?_ What was she talking about?

“See, you've rewritten time, quite a lot. Quite horribly so. I've seen further along your timeline, and I've seen what was supposed to happen. It hasn't happened now, of course, but me being – well, _me_ , I remember. Clara Oswald helped you, she helped you overcome your grief and helped you be the Doctor when you most needed to be. She helped you save your planet.”

He stands up from the bed, shaking, glaring at her. She was lying. She had to be. This was a trick, a trap. Had to be. She was lying and she will

he'll kill her he'll kill her anyway doesn't matter if she's lying or if she isn't lying it doesn't matter that she wasn't involved in River's kidnapping it doesn't  
it doesn't matter  
he'll kill her anyway  
but not now not yet

“Together you managed to seal Gallifrey away somewhere safe. Of course, a problem arose when they tried to get back into this universe. Have you seen where we are?” She stands up too, walking towards a window, beckoning him to stand next to her. He walks over almost automatically, a bit dazed. Outside, he can see a planet. It doesn't look spectacular, if he's honest. Just a regular planet.

“Do you want to know what it's called?” she asks.

“What?” he whispers.

“Trenzalore.”

His hearts skip a beat. He's heard the name of course. _On the fields of Trenzalore..._

“What happened?” he asks, still whispering for some reason.

“They wanted to come through, the Time Lords, but it wasn't safe. There would have been armies waiting for them, ready to fire as soon as they came through. The Time War would've begun anew. You were trying to stop that from happening. You fought. For a very long time.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“What happened?”

Tasha shrugs. “Don't know. That's as far as I got before the changes caught up with me.”

He stares at the planet floating in the void. Tries to imagine what it was like, what Trenzalore would have looked like, what it would've felt like to stand there, on the battlefield. If there was a battlefield. Was it flat, open plains, ground turned to mud by the rains and the many feet trampling across the land? Or perhaps he battled in rolling hills, once lovely and peaceful until he arrived and the skies turned dark and the flowers wilted. Maybe he hid in a fortress on a mountain, using the tactical advantage the height gave him to rain hellfire on his enemies below. Were there towns, cities? Innocent people who got caught up in the fight? Had he used them in the fight, or protected them? Had the people cursed his name for bringing death into their homes, or had they worshiped him for being their guardian?

Did he truly save Gallifrey? Did he bring his people back? How happy he must've been, knowing he hadn't slaughtered his own kind, knowing his friends, his family, were safe. How great it must've felt to have the burden lifted from his shoulders, the guilt erased, to emerge from the Time War not a murderer, but a hero.

but he doesn't  
feel  
any of that  
everything is so  
try to imagine seeing them again try to imagine  
their faces

   he can't

                                he can't

       r  e  m  e  m  b

                               e

                                  r

why would he want to

his head hurts

there, there, at the base of your

s

p

i

n

e

stings like a fire

Great men are forged in fire.

Where did that thought come from? Did he say it has he said it will he say it. No, keep it together. No more. _No more_

she's speaking, _listen_

“You could have had it all back.”

had what back?

“Gallifrey.”

Oh. He blinks a couple of time, trying to get the spots that appeared before eyes gone. Perhaps it's worse now, the pain, because she's talking about it, about the time that never was and he can feel it, still, feel it at the back of his head screaming to get in. If she'd just shut up he would be fine he will be fine. It's all fine.

“I don't care.” Words slipping out of his mouth without his permission but they're good words, aren't they. They hit her hard, he can see it in her face, her beautiful face, so ugly compared to River. Not where you thought it was going, Tash?

“What?” she stammers. Thrown her off her feet, he has, the great Mother Superious stumped. That's a good look on her.

“I don't care. About Trenzalore. About the war. About Gallifrey. Why should I?” His voice is monotone and that unnerves her even more.

“It's your planet. Your people.” She sounds afraid. Or disgusted. Or both. Doesn't matter anyway, soon she won't sound like anything at all. He knows the last sound she'll make, that rattling, sputtering sound as her lungs fill up with blood _he was just a guard_ and the life floods from her body. And the floor around her will colour red red red, his favourite colour, the colour of her lips, not Tasha but River, of course, he doesn't know what colour Tasha's lips are and he doesn't care, he doesn't remember, not now not then, when she pressed her mouth against his with a smile and lured him into the dark, but he was in control then, he always had a light with him to escape and she wasn't dark enough anyway, she was just a shadow and River's a void, River is the inescapable blackness that encompasses all.

“I don't care.”

“Of course you do –” And at that he laughs, too loud and sharp, and he looks at her, at her pathetic face and is that fear he sees in her eyes?

“Are you _pleading_? Do you think you can save me, as I once saved you? Sorry _Tash_ , but you're a bit too late.”

“You can still change –”

“You don't believe that,” he says. He takes a step towards her and she back away. He laughs again. “And even if I could, I wouldn't.”

“You'll destroy time!” she shrieks, panic setting in, her hands stretched out in front of her, trying to keep him away from her but he's getting

closerandcloserand

“Maybe. Maybe keeping her alive will destroy time and maybe it won't, maybe we'll stay together forever until time runs out and entropy catches up with us." He laughs and laughs and his face hurts from laughing or is that just his head? "At least we'll be together.”

Her back thumps against the wall, trapped, like a fly in a web, that's all she is anyway, a fly, an annoyance buzzing around his head _and it hurts_ time to go now, Tasha, time to meet your maker or whoever she prayed to at night, his hand pinning her to the wall by her neck, so fragile, he can feel her pulse, fast and irregular, her desperate broken heart pumping the

red

red

red

blood around her veins for the last time it's too late sweetheart, you should have stayed a psychopath, shouldn't have tried to play the saviour.

It's amazing how comforting the knife feels in his hand nowadays. How easy it slips between the fabric of her clothes and between her ribs into the soft flesh and organs underneath. He sees her mouth open is she screaming? maybe but he can't hear anything anyway, that droning drowning out every sound, time slowing to a crawl and he feels the blood spatter on his face, warm and wet and red and then her body goes limp and he releases his hold on her and she

f

a

l

l

s

down the wall onto the cold ground of the chapel

                f         a g                t

                    r                   en

                                m                       s

of her screams echoing through the room.

his head hurts

“Doctor?”

River, then, voice like honey, standing in the doorway (dead guards behind her). She sees the body. “What did you do?”

He looks down at Tasha. Her eyes are still open.

Staring

at him.

No, that's not possible.

“Killed her.”

“Why did you do that?” she asks.

He shrugs. Tasha's eyes still searing into his skin. He turns away.

“Why did you kill the guards?”

She shrugs. “They were in the way.”

“What did you two talk about?” he asks, suddenly remembering

      like he forgot their faces

that River talked to Tasha too.

She looks away. “Oh. Nothing. Kovarian. Some... other things.”

“Other things?”

She seems distracted (disgusted? at what?). “Doesn't matter.”

Did she say something – Tasha, not River, Tasha before she died did he hear

her eyes on him  
burning

_she's going to_

“Let's get out of here. Let's go. Let's burn it all down.” She's already walking away and he follows like he always does. Soon they'll be in one of the ships, one of the ships manned by the corpses of the soldiers they killed and they'll fly away back to that scorching planet

her eyes scorching his back as he walks away

back to the TARDIS, back to their own happy life, and the Church of the Silence will be nothing but dust and death, the husk of the Papal Mainframe will fall to the planet, to Trenzalore, where no question will ever be asked or answered.

before she dies  
  her voice  
    in his ears

_She's going to kill you._


	12. because without you, I am only revolutions of ruin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How do you know you've gone mad?

It's strange, but he's not entirely sure what happiness is anymore. He thinks he must be happy now, because he's got River and they're together all the time so how could his life not be pure bliss? Being with her, traveling with her, holding her at night (not sleeping because then he'd miss out on time he could've spent looking at her and what use is sleep anyway?), everything is perfect and yet

and yet

she averts her eyes, sometimes, a grimace on her face like she's seen something horrible but then a moment later she grabs his hand and laughs and everything is fine so what is she hiding, why are there closed-off spaces in her mind that she won't let him see, when he lets her see everything? He thinks it might have to do with Tasha but when he asks about it she just shrugs. Not important. Don't waste even a breath on that woman, don't even spare her a single thought. She's dead now, what does it matter?

Perhaps she is right, perhaps that's what's stopping him from truly feeling happy, but he can't seem to let it go. He can't seem to get the image of

_her eyes on him, piercing him even in death there's nothing there anymore so why does it feel like she's still watching why does he keep seeing her eyes everywhere he turns, in his mind, in every mirror, in every unknown face in a crowd she follows him and it's not fair it's not fair he killed her she is not allowed to haunt him like this, he never even loved her, never even really liked her she did not have the right to stay with him like this_

Tasha's dead body out of his mind.

how do you know you've gone mad

He thought he had, back when she left him, during those twohundred years, thought that must've been it, that's what it's like when your mind breaks. And perhaps it was a kind of madness, but it was... different. It was clear. Focused. And he was still

the Doctor

the name feels so strange in his mouth now, so foreign and uncomfortable, it doesn't fit him – or rather, it doesn't feel like _enough_ , he doesn't want to be just _the Doctor_ , he wants to be _them_ , the Doctor and River Song, together, because alone he is nothing, alone terrifies him. It's getting harder and harder to tell what's real and what's illusions made up by his sleep-deprived and battered mind, but at least he knows she's real. At least he can trust her to exist. Without her he'd be lost in his own insanity.

Other times he's more lucid, like the clouds break and he's painfully aware of what the light reveals. He sees the timeline, growing like mold all around them, infecting the very fabric of reality and he wants to throw up at the sight of it and sometimes he does, or he thinks he does, those days when River finds him clawing at his own skin to get to the parasites underneath it, or screaming at nothing because his head feels like it's being crushed to dust. She always holds him then, whispering soothing words and stroking his hair and kissing him softly. And he remembers then, remembers Amy and Rory and Donna and Martha and Rose and everything that came before, but it's like a slideshow, a movie he didn't make about a life he never had.

Nothing that came before matters.

Nothing after will.

There are other times where he feels stronger than ever, more powerful than ever. That's when he thinks he must be happy. When his days are filled with running and fighting and her laughter and it's like nothing can stop them, not with the euphoria rushing through their veins. No man, woman, child, army, hero, can stop them. Not time. Not ever. Though she brings it up.

“But if you never meet me for the first time – the paradoxes –”

A garden world, idyllic, filled with light and colour and babbling brooks, the two of them strolling along, why, one could even mistake them for a normal couple. If one didn't see their faces, that is.

“Paradoxes? Ha!” He laughs, and there's a slight hysterical edge to it, he knows, but it is hysterical, isn't it? It's hilarious how he ever even considered letting her die. It's hilarious how he ever thought of just playing by the laws of time. He closes his eyes, feeling the warm sunlight caress his skin. The good days are very good. “Paradoxes don't stand a chance against us.”

_and yet he feels them, feels their thorns in his mind wreaking havoc, twisting and turning and bleeding and suffocating and he should do somethng about that because maybe that's it right? that's what standing between him and happiness: time, waging war on his senses, assaulting him, punishing him for his crimes._

_(all he wants is to keep her alive, how is that a crime?)_

“We're the last Time Lords. We make the rules. We can be together forever. We can – we can do _anything_.” He turns to her, grabs her by the shoulders, smiling widely even as time wraps its bony claws around his throat, _but there is a solution, has to be, there always is, always a way out. he's a time lord, his people conquered time and bound it with machines and laws and he will not bend to it now, he will no longer let it control him, weaken him_. “What do you want, River Song? The entire universe, all of time and space, it's _ours_. Do you want a planet? I can give you a planet. Do you want to kill Hitler? Why not, right? I can make you a queen – no, I can make you a _goddess_. Just say the word.”

She turns away, silent. She's got that look again, though she tries to hide it. He wants to make it go away, make her smile, get rid of that dark cloud in her mind.

The moment passes. “I suppose a planet might be nice.”

-

_there's a solution, and it starts here:_

_a time lord and his time machine,_

_a sacrifice,_

_a cry of pain and then_

_nothing_

 

_it ends:_

_a man and his machine_

-

Odd how quickly you can burn a planet. It seems like big task, destroying a planet's social and enviromental systems to the point of no return, but they do it within a year. Then again, they are River Song and the Doctor, the unstoppable force all creatures fear, the things mothers warn their children about.

The stuff of nightmares.

A different kind of fairytale.

How fast they go from benevolent rulers to tyrants, and from tyrants to catastrophies, and from catastrophies to the apocalypse.

Fun, though.

They watch from their palace as the world around them burns, the glow of the fire making River look like some sort of ethereal fire spirit. The look on her face is less ethereal, and it pains him. She'd been quite happy, at first. It was her idea to try and destroy everything, but now that they've reached their goal it seems like she isn't content with the outcome.

“What's wrong?” he asks, dropping a kiss to her bare shoulder.

She sighs. “Nothing.”

“Doesn't seem like nothing.”

“It's fine.”

“River...”

“It's just...” She hesitates. “I thought things would be different.” 

“Suppose it isn't quite as exciting as I assumed it would be." He smiles. "We did well, though. And to think we only came to this place a year ago.”

She falls silent. A sad look on her features he doesn't understand.

“A hundred.”

He looks at her, puzzled. “A hundred what?”

“A hundred years. We've been here a hundred years, not one.” She strokes his face, softly, like she's afraid she'll break him. He doesn't understand.

“No, it's been one year, I know –”

“You think we did all this in a year? We had to win an election. We spent months on that alone. And then there was the time it took to invade the other countries, to bring down the world leaders, to cripple the entire planet's ecosystem...”

He remembers. He remembers all of it, of course he does. He can't forget any moment spent with her, can't allow any of those precious moments to disappear from his mind. Hoards them like a dragon hoards gold, pushes away the rest of the memories to make room.

the boring years are the ones to go first, the ones spent alone, without friends or family, when it's just him and his ship and the universe, then it's the less important people, the ones once met, the kind strangers but they don't take up much space and he thinks soon he'll forget the other ones, the friends, companions, the ones that made him the Doctor but maybe that's better? maybe it's better to forget than to remember and to know that they would hate to see him like this, that it would break their hearts, that they would be disgusted and outraged and so so sad wouldn't it be better if he wasn't burndened by them anymore? sometimes forgetting is better isn't it?

Just not her. She's already experienced him forgetting her but it won't happen again, not ever. If it costs him a few other memories, so be it.

“It's like your sense of time is damaged. You remember everything, but are unable to tell how much time it took.” Her worried voice pulling him back. “The paradoxes, perhaps –”

“It doesn't matter.”

She stares at him – that look again – and opens her mouth to speak, the moment between mouth opening and her voice coming out takes aeons and he

forgets

forget Jamie and Zoe first, forget the cruel punishment they received, how he loathed his people for doing that to his friends and yet he put his fingers on Donna's temples and made her forget even as she begged him not to and isn't it better to forget about that isn't it better

how strange to feel still feel guilt about that, even as he murders innocents by the millions

funny

how small it started

not that he hadn't killed before, of course not, he destroyed Gallifrey, and before that, there were others, but this was different because it was _them_ , _together_ , and that guard was just

he was just a guard

probably wouldn't have shot her

he could see it in his eyes, those young eyes, the fear in them, the way his hand trembled

he was never gonna shoot her

he wasn't a murderer, just a guard

and now he's dead, has been dead, will be dead, for what must be a thousand a million an eternity, so long ago and he can't even remember his face (but he remembers the eyes, all their eyes, staring, accusing, full of fear and confusion and why and what have you become)

It doesn't matter.

“Of course it matters,” she murmers, sighing.

-

It's night, or he thinks it must be, since they're in bed. He awakes to her hand softly stroking his hair.

“You slept,” she says softly.

“Yes.”

“You haven't slept in ages. Not without something to help you along, anyway.”

He shrugs (as much as you can shrug while lying down).

“So?”

Silence, for a second, a minute, or sixty years.

She turns away.

He thinks he can hear her crying.

-

How do you know you've gone mad, anyway?

The best indicator is probably how she looks at him. Sad, and angry, and disgusted. But he's doing this for her, isn't he? Everything he does is for her. Yet he can't make that look go away, can't prevent her from flinching when his mind touches hers. She knows, of course she does. She can sense the hole in his mind, she knows what it is. What it was. What was there, and now is not. She's clever, his River. Maybe she even thinks she can fix it. She can't.

Is it madness if it's just a _lack_ of something? Lack of empathy, except for her; lack of _time,_ except for the time spent with her. Perhaps, he muses, perhaps it's not the state of mind that's madness. Perhaps the madness is the action that got him into this state.

But it's for her.

So it's good, right?

“It's not good,” she says. Was he talking out loud? “You mutilated your own mind.”

He scoffs. “Hardly _mutilated_ –”

“You took away your own sense of time! That's like – you're a _Time_ Lord, it's like clawing out your own eyes!” She's crying again, has been crying this entire time (time?), clutching at his shoulders, desperate, and so, so sad. He hates seeing her sad. Wipes away the tears on her cheek.

“It's fine. It's better this way. The paradoxes won't bother me anymore now,” he says soothingly.

“It's not... it's not better. You have to undo it.”

“Why?”

She gapes at him. “You can't live like this.”

“Of course I can,” he says, smiling. “I've got you, haven't I?”

-

Everything happens all at once and not at all. No time means no yesterday or tomorrow or five seconds ago or remember back when? Things just are. Moments come and go and stay forever. She tries to fix him, to no avail. Time isn't something you just put back in a person. Maybe once, maybe when the Time Lords still existed, maybe then it would have been possible. But the age of Time Lords is long over (will be over has been over is now happening has never happened), and his mind stays free from the cruel flow of time. She tells him, how _she_ can still feel it, the paradoxes, the rot, but it never affected her as much as him. Still, he offers to take it all away from her too. Imagine that. The two of them.

Timeless.

She declines.

-

_he remembers every moment spent with her_

_remembers the smile on her face when she took off that helmet and called him 'sweetie' for the first time_

_remembers the way she'd impressed him and charmed him and told him off for being too emotional_

_remembers how she held his hand while they ran_

_remembers how she died saving everyone else_

_she'll never be that now_

_she's not that woman anymore_

_he hasn't been that man in so long_

-

“I tried to kill you.”

He sits up in bed. She's standing in the doorway, soft light from the hallway making her hair seem like a halo around her.

He frowns, noticing her outfit (practical, dark, _gun_ ). “I know, I was there.”

“No, not Berlin.”

“Lake Silencio, then. I was there too, you know.”

“No,” she says. She saunters over to the bed, almost casual, but there's something tense in her frame. “There were other times. A lot of times. Sometimes it was involuntary, just a leftover from my training. Other times...” She pauses. “Remember when I gave you that poison to get you to sleep?”

“I remember every second we spend together.”

She ignores him. Sits down on the bed, his back to him. “You were out for a week. I said it was an accident. It wasn't. I gave you too much on purpose.”

He doesn't understand it. Any of it.

(He does, of course he does. Understands why she did it. Understands Kovarian now, understands Tasha, what she and River must've talked about, and what she meant when she died and s _he's going to kill you_.)

“Why?”

She laughs. “Why does anyone try to kill anyone? Because I wanted you dead. Because... because you're repulsive. You're mad. You're destroying time. Someone needs to stop you. And I'm the only one left who can.” She turns to him. “And yet... I couldn't. I couldn't because I love you. Or I thought I couldn't because I love you. But I think I was just a coward.”

“River...” He reaches out, pulls her close to her. She sags into his frame. Crying again. “River, it's okay.” _It's fine, it's okay_.

“If Amy –” Her voice cracks. “If Amy and Rory could see us now, their hearts would break. They – they died because of us. If we hadn't antagonised those Angels, they wouldn't have killed Amy and Rory.”

“You don't know that.”

“You never read the book. I did. I read the book, they –” Her voice wavers again. She takes a long, deep breath to steady herself. Closes her eyes. Like she can't stand to look at him. “They weren't supposed to die. They were supposed to be sent back in time. Away from us, yes, but... together. Alive. We changed it. We changed it and we killed them.”

He says nothing. Just softly strokes her arm as she sobs.

he can't even

                       remember

“Can you even remember them?” she whispers.

Of course he can, of course

she had red hair

he had a kind face

and they were

they waited

always waited

_she's going to kill you_

he killed them

“Sweetie,” she says, taking his face in her hands. “This isn't right. This isn't living. I can't – I can't sit around and watch you destroy time, destroy _yourself_.”

“We destroyed each other,” he says softly. A memory floats to the surface from within the dark. “She – Amy said we would.”

River nods. “I know, I know.”

“I can't... I can't go back, I can't be him again.” There's no back there's no forward there's just

nothingness

a void

She bites her lip. “I know, sweetie.” Never calls him _Doctor_ anymore. He died a long time ago.

Maybe when he met her. He thought he started living then, but maybe

_a gun_

_a guard_

_red_

_on her lips or? No_

_just the blood staining the floor where he lays_

_that'll be all that's left of him_

_like swatting a fly_

“I have to do it,” she says. “For them. For everyone else. For your own good. And then I have to go to the Library. Complete the cycle.”

He grips her shirt tighter at the word. “You can't go –”

“I have to.” Her hand slips into his hair. Her face, closer, pressing her lips against his. He tastes salt. Her tears or his, he's not sure.

Cool metal against his bare chest.

“I'm so sorry, my love.”

“It's okay,” he whispers. It is. Everybody knows that everybody dies. Even him. “It's okay, River. My River.” He's so old now, anyway. And she'll kill him, like he always wanted. He can go, like this. It's fine.

For the first time in years, his mind is clear. They say your life flashes before your eyes when you're about to die, but he doesn't need a slideshow. He can see River, feel her warm skin under his hands. His life. Right in front of him. Everything is clear now.

“I love you,” she says, voice trembling, even as her hand steadies, finger on the trigger, pulling ever so slightly. He looks at her. Smiles.

“I love you too.”

 

 

And the void takes him.

 

 

-

_It started out innocently enough. A 'hello sweetie' and shadows and a little girl and eyes that held his history, his future._

_Her hair was red._

_A feeling of dread came over him. Like his whole brain, like time itself was screaming at him to stay way, don't go near her, don't ever get involved with her._

_He took her hand. Well, he was never one to back away from a challenge._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS IS IT THIS IS THE END WOW IT'S OVER WE DID IT KIDS.  
> Last chapter took a longass time because I am terrible at endings. Hope you liked it anyways, and thanks for sticking around.  
> There might be typos and stuff bc it's late and I'm tired but I want to post it anyway.
> 
> Title chapter from Only Revolutions. AS ALWAYS.


End file.
